


Something Changed

by renouncingChance



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, Fluff, Fluffy as all hell really, Humanstuck, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-12
Updated: 2015-07-07
Packaged: 2018-01-12 02:39:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 21,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1180940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/renouncingChance/pseuds/renouncingChance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>University, as everyone knows, is a time of burgeoning independence, new perspectives and maybe even a little bit of dawning maturity.</p>
<p>And also, if you have time, occasionally attending classes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Tramps Like Us

It was her first day at university, and Nepeta Leijon was utterly, some might say unreasonably, determined to enjoy the experience. Her levels of excitement had been building all day, beginning as soon as she leapt out of bed, building through the car journey in the company of her mother and sister (who squealed with second-hand excitement most of the way), rising to a crescendo as she dashed up the dorm building’s stairs just ahead of her sister and now peaking as she opened the door of her room to find:

“EQUIUS!”

Her best friend turned from his unpacking, adjusting his shades. “Ah, Nepeta. It is good to-“

He got no further before the air was driven from his lungs by Nepeta leaping onto him in an aggressive hug. Despite the fact that he was over a foot taller than her, she had managed to develop her leaping skills over several years so that, from a standing start several feet away, she was able to grab him around the neck and press her cheek against his chest, her feet inches from the ground. It was a niche skill, but she treasured it.

“I am, as ever, extremely glad to see you. However, I cannot but feel that this is overkill, given that we saw one another yesterday. And indeed every day as far back as I care to remember.”

Nepeta released him, managing with care to land back on her feet. She had fluffed landings before, causing both discomfort and embarrassment.

“I’m just so glad that we get to be roomies! I mean, what were the odds?”

“Quite high, I should think,” Equius sniffed. “Given that we both specifically requested such an arrangement. I feel certain the drawing you submitted of the two of us holding hands in what I believe you termed ‘roomie bliss’ also played a part.”

Nepeta pouted. “Can’t you just be grateful?”

“I am grateful. I am grateful that the systems which are put in place for our benefit clearly work.”

Nepeta looked as though she was about to say something, then suddenly leapt onto one of the beds and started bouncing on it.

“I call this bed!”

“Ah. That would be the bed which is surrounded by my belongings, on which my semi-unpacked suitcase rests and which bears a handwritten note which says ‘Equius’s Bed’?”

“Yes. That bed.”

Equius sighed. “Very well. It’s not as though I really had a preference.”

At this point, Nepeta remembered that her sister Meulin had been standing in the doorway the whole time, observing the interplay and attempting to stifle her giggles. Equius, who seemed to have only just noticed her, looked a little ashamed, but Nepeta didn’t mind in the slightest. Equius was like a brother to her, if not better, which made them all family. And it wasn’t as though Meulin would tease her about this. She wasn’t like that. And even if she had been, Nepeta had PLENTY of dirt on the weird things she and her creepy boyfriend got up to. Notebooks full of reference material. Just in case.

Even so, it was clear that Meulin didn’t want to intrude, and after only a few moments of checking that Nepeta had everything she needed, she bid her farewells. After a long and tearful hug from Nepeta, and an entirely one-sided hug with Equius (who refused to hug, having accidentally cracked Nepeta’s rib in the past), she was gone, and the two were left alone. Nepeta busied herself with unpacking, chattering away as Equius resignedly moved his books and alarm clock over to the other bedside table. In the middle of a lengthy speculation about what the orientation week would bring, Nepeta opened the wardrobe, looked in and stopped mid-sentence.

“Equius?”

“Yes?”

“Why do you have a tux?”

“It is my understanding that university life includes a number of gatherings at which formal wear is expected. I can hardly show up to those in a vest and shorts, can I?”

“But a TUX?”

“What did you expect? The horse costume I wore when we were five years old? Although I believe Horuss did wear something similar to a party when he was at uni…”

“A TUX?!!”

“Nepeta, your suddenly limited vocabulary is beginning to alarm me.”

“Do they even make tuxes in your size?”

“It was tailored. As I recall, the tailor’s eyes fairly lit up when he saw me coming. After my fitting, I distinctly heard him call his wife and mention something about a bottle of champagne.”

Nepeta stared blankly at her friend. Even after all these years, it was impossible to tell when Equius was joking. His habitual lack of irony, combined with his sincere, deadpan monotone, suggested that he hardly even knew what joking was. There was a sense of humour in there, all right, but it was very carefully hidden.

“Why are you stunned into incoherence by my possessing a tuxedo?”

“I’m not STUNNED. It’s just… I didn’t bring a dress. Not a really nice one, anyway. In fact, I don’t know if I even have one fancy enough for something like that.”

“Very well. If such an event does arise, you can go and buy one.”

“And YOU’RE coming with me, mister! You forced this on me, so you’re paying the consequences. And let me tell you: I will be trying on ALL OF the dresses. And I will expect your opinions on all of them. And your opinions had better be both informed and incisive.”

Equius sighed deeply, and Nepeta giggled. To think that she would get to do this every day… University was starting to look even more promising that it had that morning.

“Oh!” The sudden exclamation made Equius jump.

“Which of my clothes do you take issue with now?”

“All of them, but that’s not it. You know what this room doesn’t have?”

“Quite a lot of things, really. A waterslide? A bar? A grand piano?”

Nepeta stuck her tongue out at Equius, then went over to one of her bags, fished about in it for a few moments and triumphantly drew out a large teapot and two mugs, all decorated with frolicking cats.

“Tea!”

“True. Or any source of water. Or anywhere to store milk.”

“Pffffft. We can get them in the kitchen. I’ll even draw a picture of you looking furbidding with the caption ‘PAWS OFF’ that we can put on the milk to stop anyone else using it.”

Equius rose to his feet.

“So I take it you want to go and get some tea. And milk, presumably.”

“Yes! Durrrr!” 

Nepeta bounded out the door. Equius stretched his legs a little and sighed before following her.

 

***

 

Although he would have strangled anyone who suggested as much, Karkat Vantas was in quite a good mood as he strolled down the dorm corridor. University offered a chance to go free and clear at last, not to be tied down by his past life. If there was one thing Karkat hated, it was his past life, which was tainted at every point by the omnipresence of past Karkat, with his determined inability to be present Karkat.

In fact, it seemed that nothing could spoil his good mood; not the four-hour car journey with his older brother offering as much sanctimonious advice as he could think of; not the absurd weight of his bags (what had he even packed that could be this heavy? And why?); not even the trek up six flights of goddamned stairs, or the realisation halfway up that there was, in fact, a lift.

Yes, his spirits were unassailable, right up until the moment he pushed open the door to room 6-12 and there, already perched at his damn laptop, was Sollux bloody Captor.

Oh shitting fuck.

All right. There had to be a calm and rational way to deal with this.

“What the everloving FUCK are you doing here?!”

Or there was that alternative.

Sollux didn’t even look up from whatever he was doing. “Nithe to thee you too, KK.”

“Oh, this is just perfect. Here I am hoping to make a clean getaway, born to fucking run, and they only go and stick me in a room with the same wanker I’ve been stuck with for the last six fucking years of my life!”

Sollux shrugged. “Hey, I didn’t athk for thith either. In fact, I hacked the regithtry tho that I wouldn’t have a roommate. Lookth like there wath a latht minute change, though.”

Karkat shook his head in disbelief. Christ. By the end of sixth form, he had practically begun to think in Sollux’s voice; a Sheffield accent combined with a lisp to create an impenetrable wall that came dangerously close to incoherence. The idea of spending even more time having to listen to it was a real danger to his mental health. And that was just the voice. Sollux himself was even worse.

“I would have thought you and your weird sister would be sharing a room.”

At this point Sollux did look up, his eyebrows raised well above his stupid red and blue glasses in incredulity. “Are you joking? I mean, I love AA, but Jethuth Chritht doeth she get on my nerveth. Almotht ath much ath I get on herth. We agreed that eighteen yearth living together wath more than enough.”

Karkat had backed away from the avalanche of spittle that was “Jethuth Chritht”, and now found himself back in the corridor, which was bustling with activity and laughter. He sighed in resignation, went back into the room and threw his bags on the bed.

“You’re late, by the way. I wath almotht beginning to hope I wouldn’t have a roommate after all.”

“Oh, well, fuck you too. I arrived later than most because I’m actually fucking capable of taking care of myself.”

Sollux frowned. “You shouldn’t really joke about that. There’th a guy in a wheelchair on the ground floor. I thought I thaw a blind chick around thomewhere too.”

“You did? You did thaw a blind chick?”

Sollux actually raised his glasses, giving Karkat a look that by rights should have burned holes in his chest.

“What is this, then, the fucking special needs dorm?”

“Courthe. Why do you think you’re here?”

Sollux grinned toothily as Karkat collapsed back on the bed.

“You just get on with whatever stupid hacker shit you’re doing. I’m going to unpack.”

“Hacker thhit? I’m trying to inthtall Thkyrim.”

“On a fucking laptop?”

“That’th why I thaid ‘trying’. I’m buggered if I’m gonna thpend a whole year not playing it jutht becauthe I couldn’t be arthed bringing a whole dethktop here.”

Karkat unzipped one of his bags and frowned. “Why the fuck was this so heavy? There’s just clothes in here.”

“Maybe it’th not. Maybe you’re jutht a weakling.”

“Says the guy with no fucking muscle tone.”

“Dude, you know I have dythprakthia. That’th not cool.”

Karkat sighed. “Shit. I’m sorry, man. You know how my mouth likes to run away with me like it’s training for the fucking London Marathon and I’m its long-suffering co-“

He broke off when he realised Sollux was grinning.

“Oh for fuck’s sake! Why do I always manage to fall for the fucking ‘please don’t talk about my disability, I’m too sensitive’ act?”

“Becauthe you’re a moron. Obviouthly."

Karkat’s profane comeback died in his mouth as he cleared away some of the clothes and saw the bottom of the bag.

“He didn’t… no fucking way…”

Sollux glanced over curiously, but Karkat’s body hid the bag from view. He noted the position of the progress bar on his screen, stood over and peered around his friend (for want of a better term). At the bottom of the bag, under layers of grey t-shirts, was a lining of thick books with bright covers and titles like “How to Survive at College!” and “Dos and Don’ts for Your First Year Away from Home!”. As he watched, Karkat, as if in a reverie, pulled out a particularly bulky title called “Check Your Privilege: How to Survive the Minefield of Contemporary Academic Discourse”.

“Fucking Kankri,” he breathed with soft venom.

 

***

 

Kanaya Maryam was nervous. It wasn’t just the knowledge that she was about to enter into a period of her life which would determine the rest of its course, though that was certainly part of it. It wasn’t some nebulous fear of failure, either academic or social, that hovered over her. It was something much more specific, something she knew she’d be confronting in the immediate future.

The presence of her sister was helping a lot, though. Porrim had a distinctly maternal air about her, despite her imposing height and the fact that every visible inch of her arms and legs was covered in tattoos. She had been there for her little sister at every juncture over the years. What was more, she knew exactly what was troubling Kanaya, and her encouraging little smiles made it infinitely easier to face.

As they walked across the campus, Kanaya became gradually aware of something odd. Usually when they walked together, eyes were inexorably drawn to Porrim’s distinctive presence. Some of those stares were simply curious, but there were always a few fearful ones; usually middle-aged or elderly men, presumably afraid that Porrim was about to swoop on their daughters and carry them away with her pansexual wiles and Arabic beauty. Here, though, no stares were forthcoming; almost as though Porrim wasn’t considered to be at all different here. Her sister seemed to notice Kanaya’s surprise, and smiled.

“The lack of stares is definitely one of the easier things to get used to at uni. I mean, you’ll probably get the odd stare, but it’ll just be some girl in raptures at your devastating beauty. It’s the curse of the Maryams.”

Kanaya grinned. It was a nice thought, but as far as she was concerned, Porrim, with her slender figure and alluring eyes, had monopolised both sisters’ share of the family wellspring of beauty. Not that she herself was a hideous ogre, but she knew that if the two sisters stood side by side, most people probably wouldn’t even register her presence. When Porrim wore black lipstick and eyeshadow, she looked like a queen of the night. When Kanaya did, she looked like Robert Smith.

After what seemed like far too short a time, they arrived at the entrance to the dorm building. As they stood awkwardly outside, Porrim looked worried for the first time.

“Do you want me to come in with you? It might make it easier."

Kanaya shook her head. “I’ll have to face her alone for the rest of the year. Might as well start as I mean to go on.”

Porrim nodded, and handed over the red suitcase she had been wheeling from the car. “You never know. Maybe you got put with someone else after all.”

By way of reply, Kanaya simply held up her phone:

AG: Hey roooooooomie! You’d 8etter get over here quick, 8efore I take up all the wardro8e space!

Porrim made a face. “And you’re _certain_ you don’t want me to go in and smack her about a bit? I really wouldn’t mind, you know.”

Kanaya laughed. “It might make the rest of the year a bit awkward. Vriska’s the type to hold grudges.”

“I thought she might be. Can I take a random guess at your room number?”

“No need. I suspect the first thing she’ll do when I get in there will be to complain that there’s no 8th floor.”

Kanaya turned to go on. Porrim took her arm gently.

“Seriously, sis. I’m just the other end of a phone line if you need me.”

“Thanks,” Kanaya smiled. “I’ll let you know if Vriska blows up the room.”

“You mean _when_.”

The two sisters embraced, and made their farewells. Kanaya watched Porrim’s retreating figure with an air of doom. Despite what she’d said to her sister, she was not at all confident in her ability to face the girl with whom she’d been in love for as long as she could remember. Delaying it was senseless, though.

She made her way inside gloomily, cursing her ability to be rational at times of emotional crisis. It seemed that quite a few people had already arrived. A short girl wearing a hat in the shape of a cat’s head was somehow dragging a huge behemoth of a boy, who was holding a plastic shopping bag, up the stairs by the arm. Voices were coming from some of the rooms; roommates getting to know each other, or expressing delight at their good fortune in ending up together. Finally she got to room 8 on the ground floor, and pushed it open, the slight squeak of the door sounding to her ears like the tolling of some doom-laden bell.

Vriska had already put some music on; something loud and abrasive, probably by some band with “death” or “skull” somewhere in their name. Kanaya hoped that this might preclude the possibility of conversation, at least for now, but as soon as the door swung open Vriska paused the music as she sprang to her feet with delight.

“Maryam! You took your fucking time! Let me guess: tearful farewell with big sis?”

“Yes, but without the tears. She just wanted to see me to the door.”

Vriska shook her head, as if ashamed. “I keep telling you, you need to be more independent. Don’t get me wrong, your sister can be pretty cool, but she’s all… meddlesome. Like you, but worse. And you just enable her. I mean, do you think Aranea walked me here?”

“Certainly not,” replied Kanaya, the ghost of a smile playing about her lips. “I don’t see any evidence of a recent fit of rage anywhere in this room.”

Vriska looked as if she was about to shoot something back, but instead simply grinned. That was almost worse. Kanaya had often thought that she would have long since been over Vriska if the latter were as unpleasant to her as she was to almost everyone else, but the fact that she seemed to be almost unique among the entire human race in actually being _liked_ by Vriska Serket was torture. Every moment by her side was agony, but breaking ties was entirely out of the question, since it would leave Vriska essentially friendless.

“So, hey!” Vriska was never one to dwell on a conversational topic for very long. “Do you know anyone else who’s coming here this year?"

“Are you so very desperate to find other friends?”

“Come on, Kanaya, you know you’re my girl.” Vriska’s grin was actually painful at this point. They had barely been in the same room a couple of minutes, and already it was everything Kanaya had feared; initial attempts to mould her into Vriska’s own image, followed by a disarming, if brief, glimpse of sincerity, compounded by a rare use of her first name.

“Well, my faith in the constancy of your affections notwithstanding, I’m afraid that I don’t really know anyone else here. Most of our former classmates went to Beforan University, I believe.”

“Oh, boo,” Vriska sulked. “Not that I’m sorry to be rid of those losers. But the only person I know here apart from you is my neighbour, and he’s not exactly a barrel of laughs.”

“I’m certain you’ll make friends once lectures start. What with your winning personality and all.”

“You may mock, but you’ll see. Give it a few weeks and they’ll be lining up around the block for my attention.”

She tossed her auburn mane dismissively. It would have been a silly gesture for most people, but Vriska had spent years perfecting it, and Kanaya had to admit that she had really honed it. It would bring tears of jealous joy to Scarlett O’Hara’s eyes.

Kanaya realised her attention had been focused on Vriska, and she had failed to inspect the room in which she’d be spending the next several months. It was… quite nice, actually. Fairly spacious, though she would have been happier had the beds been more than an arm’s length apart. She could do without the temptation of being able to reach out and touch Vriska in the night. She hastily tried to distract herself with something else. Anything but the thought of Vriska’s soft, pale sk- Erm, everything seemed in order. Although…

“Did it have to be the ground floor?”

“Sure it did! Otherwise we would have had another number before the 8, and that would have been unacceptable!”

“Zero is also a number.”

“Yeah, but we can just refer to it as ‘room 8’, or ‘room 8 on the ground floor’. People will get it.”

“If you say so. I must insist that we keep the windows shut as much as possible, though. I will not have some drunken loon leaning in and vomiting all over the place at two in the morning.”

Vriska shrugged. “Might add a little colour to the place.”

 

***

 

Terezi Pyrope was finding her usual eagerness for new experiences somewhat tempered today. This had nothing whatsoever to do with nerves, anxiety, homesickness or in fact anything related to her life at university. It had everything to do with the determinedly cheery RA to whom she had been handed over by her mother after getting out of the car.

She could have found her own way to the dorm. It wouldn’t have been too difficult; follow the noise, maybe ask a few people for directions (but not help). The last thing she needed was someone holding her hand (not her arm, her actual _hand_ ) and chattering away about how _fun_ the student life was, making absolutely sure to slip in the word _inclusive_ wherever possible, as if to say “I’m well aware that there is an elephant in this room, so I shall press myself against the wall and see if I can squeeze past it without anyone noticing”.

For once, Terezi couldn’t even work up the will to take the piss. Sure, whenever the RA used the word “look” or “see”, she would repeat it with a beatific smile purely to hear the poor girl’s tones of horror as she hastily apologised, but then that was just par for the course. She couldn’t work up the will for any of her usual tricks; claiming to need to lick people’s faces to know what they looked like, or pretending not to even know what colours were. Sure, the RA was a bit dim, but she was well-intentioned. She wasn’t _trying_ to be insensitive, and that earned her a few points. Only a measly few, though.

After an interminable walk, the RA finally announced: “Here we are! Inside the dorm building!” Terezi didn’t bother pointing out that she was well aware of this; it wasn’t terribly difficult to tell the difference between indoors and outdoors.

She heard a rustle as the RA consulted her notes: “Let’s see… it says you’re in 4-13. OK, let’s go!"

Now or never. “Actually, I think I can find it myself.”

“Are you sure?” Oh God, she was just _asking_ for snark at this point.

“Room 13 on the fourth floor, right? I’ll be fine.”

It took a few minutes, but she finally persuaded her hitherto implacable supervisor to leave her alone. Fortunately, she had never relinquished the large rucksack which contained most of her belongings (her sister was bringing the rest over the next day), which could well have been used as an excuse for the RA to accompany her otherwise. She stood in the corridor, savouring the sounds around her. Shouting, laughter: here was a place full of life. A place she could call home. She felt uncomfortable in quiet places.

She found the stairs quite easily, and began to climb. It seemed a little odd that they would put the blind girl up four flights of stairs, but perhaps there’d been a mix-up. Or perhaps the authorities had simply had the sense to realise that she had in fact climbed stairs before. There was probably a lift too. She should ask at some point. Her roommate, whoever that was, would know.

After a few flights, she stopped. The staircase was enclosed from the rest of the building, so it wasn’t easy to tell where the doors to the corridors were. But let’s see… she had climbed seven… no, eight flights since the ground floor, so assuming this worked like most stairways, that should make this the fourth floor.

She heard the sound of someone coming down the stairs. A very light tread. Someone fairly small, maybe barefoot? When they came to her level, she spoke up:

“Excuse me, is this the fourth floor?”

A high voice answered: “Um, yeah, it is. Are you OK?”

She grinned. “Just fine. It’s just that my seeing-eye cane can’t read signs.”

The voice giggled (and it sounded genuine, not nervous), and Terezi felt a rush of affection towards the person to whom it belonged. Laughter was better than concern or pity.

“Can you find your room OK?”

“Sure. Don’t worry about me.”

“OK then. See y- um, bye!”

Terezi grinned again at the person’s mistake. To her relief, she heard them walk down the stairs again, rather than stay to make sure she got to her room. People who didn’t believe you when you claimed to be able to do things for yourself… well, it was like they were calling you a liar. Terezi had no time for liars, and to be thought of as one was the height of rudeness.

She located the door and walked down the corridor. Thankfully, she was able to feel the numbers on the doors. All the odd-numbered rooms seemed to be on one side of the corridor. 5…7…9…11… here it was. There was a sheet of paper on the door too. She presumed her name was printed on it… oh! It was there in Braille too. That was a considerate touch. She presumed her roommate’s name must be there too, although it was less considerate that that didn’t seem to be in Braille.

She opened the door. No sound of greeting, or of any presence within. So she was the first one there. She tapped her way over to the bed, and put her rucksack down on it. She felt around for a moment until she located her scalemates, and quickly pulled them out. Lemonsnout, Pumpkinsnuffle and, of course, Pyralspite… with them placed at various angles around the bed to judge any who dared enter their sacred space, the room truly seemed like home. That said, one of them would probably end up strung up in a mock trial by the end of the week. But WHICH ONE?

As Terezi busied herself with plans for the next exciting stuffed courtroom drama, a knock sounded on her door, which she realised she had left open. A voice she recognised sounded from the doorway.

“Hi… Terezi, right? I’m Nepeta, the girl from a few minutes ago, on the stairs? I just wanted to see if you were settling in OK.”

Hmmm… it was either a bit patronising or a genuinely nice gesture. Terezi decided to reserve judgement until she knew this girl (so it was a girl; she hadn’t wanted to make assumptions) a little.

“Hi Nepeta. Come on in.” A mischievous thought struck her; a test of character. “Come and meet the scalemates.”

Nepeta must have sat in a chair, because her voice came from a slightly lower and somewhat closer position: “Oh! They’re so cuuuute! Do they have names?”

A solid ten minutes went into introducing Nepeta to the scalemates, talking about their personalities, backgrounds and the clashes she had had with each of them in court. By the end of this, Terezi had decided that she thoroughly liked Nepeta, who had shown genuine interest. Most people would have attempted to change the subject, or played along in a spirit of silliness, but Nepeta took it entirely seriously, asking questions and gasping at some examples of particular villainy.

“I’m glad you appreciate their chequered past,” Terezi admitted, when the stories had finished. “Hopefully my roommate will too. Well, either way they’ll have to deal with it.”

“Oh, I meant to ask about that,” Nepeta said. “Do you know who your roommate is? Since it doesn’t say on the door?”

“It doesn’t?” Hold on, that couldn’t be right.

“Nope!”

“Does it say on everyone else’s?”

“Sure does! Every door but this one.”

But that must mean… How strange. Nepeta seemed to have come to the same realisation, by her sudden intake of breath.

“So I don’t have a roommate. Weird. Kinda cool, though.”

“You won’t get lonely? Oh, no, of course not! You have your furriends the scalemates!”

“Furriends?” Was she just rolling the R a strange way?

“Oops!” Nepeta sounded genuinely contrite. “I’m sorry! I used to speak in catpuns a lot. My best furri- I mean, my best FRIEND has been trying to get me to stop, but it’s slow going.”

“You shouldn’t stop!” Terezi was genuinely indignant. “It’s endearing! In fact, it’s cool!”

“You really think so?” Good God, she sounded like a small child. She had to be at least eighteen, though.

“Sure! I’ve never met anyone else who talks in catpuns. Never really imagined I would, to be honest. That makes you unique! You should totally keep it up!”

“Yay! I’ll keep it up for you – no, FUR you anyway!” Nepeta laughed, and Terezi laughed with her.

Nepeta suddenly stopped laughing and looked worried. She seemed to move between emotions remarkably quickly.

“Oh… I furgot about my roommate. He’ll be wondering where I am.”

Terezi heard her stand up, and stood up as well.

“Oh! You should come up later on! We’ll have a tea purrty, and I can introduce you to my best furriend. We’re in room 5-9. Say in about an hour?”

Why not? “Yeah, I’ll be there.”

“Great! See you then!” Nepeta left the room at speed. She must really want to get back to this friend of hers.

Terezi sank down onto the bed. No roommate, but at least she’d made a friend. Possibly two, if Nepeta’s friend was anything like her. That was much better; in fact, the lack of a roommate removed an unknown quantity from the equation, which was excellent. In a flash, she realised that the eagerness which had deserted her earlier was back with a vengeance. 

 

***

 

As she sat staring at the door to her room, Aradia Megido didn’t quite know what to make of the mixture of excitement and nerves which played about her stomach. Ever since she had arrived at her room and read the name of her roommate, she hadn’t been able to shake the feeling.

Tavros Nitram. There was a name she had never expected to come across again. A relic from her childhood, consigned to hazy memory. A boy obsessed with stories of fairies, who, once you got him out of his shell, would never stop smiling; an energetic playmate of afternoons which in her memory seemed to stretch on forever.

Tavros had dominated the middle part of her childhood; the four years spent in south Wales, between the early years in Sheffield and the move down to London, where they had lived until now. She had missed the rural beauty which stood like an idyllic island in her life between the two sprawling cities. She even missed the sound of the Welsh accent. Its beautiful, musical quality contrasted so sharply with her own plain accent; hybrid London retaining a northern twang, or the accent of their birthplace which her brother, though less than a year older, had managed stubbornly to cling onto.

It was just like something from a novel; two close childhood friends finally reunited by serendipity as young adults. Of course, in a novel when Tavros strode through the door he would be a handsome young man with bulging muscles barely concealed by his inexplicably tight shirt, and she would swoon at the mere sight of him. She grinned at the thought, surprised that the Simone de Beauvoir book she had lain on the bedside table did not pick itself up and slap her about the face for indulging in such a thoroughly unfeminist fantasy.

She heard an intake of breath outside the door, almost as though someone was, oh, say, recognising the name of a childhood best friend on their door. She steeled herself. Any moment now…

The door swung open. She gasped, and immediately regretted it. It was demonstrably Tavros; she would almost have said he had hardly changed in nine years – except, of course, for the wheelchair being pushed by someone she dimly recognised as his brother, whose name she couldn’t recall.

But how had -? Oh God, she was staring. And not in the right way. He looked singularly uncomfortable. What to do? Stand up, of course. But mightn’t that make him feel worse, since he can’t -? Oh for fuck’s sake just stand up. Try to look happy. Remember happiness?

She smiled. It definitely looked fake. “Tavros! Oh my God!” Shit, her voice was way too loud. Sollux had probably heard that up in his room, six floors up. Jesus, what was she going to _do_?

She was relieved when Tavros managed a weak smile too. “Aradia? I-is it really you?”

He was trying to indulge in the cliché of the moment so that neither of them would have to dwell on its intense awkwardness. OK. That was probably a good idea.

“Yes. It’s really me.” Brilliant. Give him another dose of your rapier wit. “How have you been?”

He paused, not unreasonably, before answering the incredibly stupid and banal question.

“O-OK. I mean… it’s been hard. But, y’know…”

Wow. Could it be possible? Had the conversation genuinely run out after “how have you been”? Then again, how did you follow that up? A potted biography detailing the ups and downs of the past nine years?

Unbelievably, at this point help arrived from the most unexpected quarter.

“Hey, AA, I think you took one of my hard driveth… oh, hey there. Didn’t mean to- holy thhit, _Tavroth?”_

Tavros turned around in his chair. “Oh, hi, S-Sollux.”

“Thhit, man, never ekthpected to thee you here. And Rufioh, right?”

Tavros’s brother (so that was his damn name) nodded and grinned. “That’s me, man. You’re the kids who used to live up the lane, right?”

Somehow Sollux, for whom “friendly banter” usually consisted of a glare and an invitation to perform some form of sexual act, managed to actually strike up a conversation with Rufioh, albeit one peppered so heavily with the word “man” (a distancing form of address if ever there was one) that testosterone seemed to hang heavy in the air. As their brothers inexplicably got on, Tavros turned back to Aradia and smiled, more genuinely this time.

“Sorry. I know it must be a shock. You p-probably remember me as a kid who used to run around playing with animals, right?”

Something about the way he spoke was oddly hesitant. His stutter wasn’t very pronounced, but he seemed to pause in the middle of longer sentences, which combined with the sing-song quality of his accent to create a strange kind of rhythm, almost as if he were speaking in some kind of metre.

“Well… yeah. I really don’t mean to be rude, but-“

“Don’t worry about it. Really. There was an accident. A few years ago. I’ve gotten used to it.”

“I presume you’ll need help though? I mean, getting in and out of bed, that kind of thing?”

“No, I should be OK. I’ve still got a little feeling in my legs, and I’ve b-been through years of physiotherapy.”

He blushed and looked down, still smiling. “I mean, c-company would be nice.”

Aradia beamed. This was more like it.

“Sure. I can manage that.”

Tavros looked back up and smiled. How exactly did you strike up a friendship that had lain dormant for nine years? There wasn’t an easy answer, but perhaps they could search for one. It would be an adventure.

 

***

 

Feferi Peixes could hardly contain her excitement. Then again, that was hardly a new feeling for her. The same had been true the last time she went swimming. Also the last time it had rained. And, indeed, the last time it had been sunny. She had practically burst into song this morning at the discovery that the milk which she poured into her tea was not, as she had half-suspected, gone off. But this was excitement of a different order; not simple enthusiasm or _joie de vivre_ , but genuine anticipation.

What’s more, she had to be excited enough for two, since her cousin Eridan stubbornly refused to view university as anything other than “a fuckin wastea four precious years of my life”. Eridan’s heart was in the family shipping business, but his father had insisted that he get a degree before taking up a position at the firm, and nobody argued with Eridan’s father. Feferi, in her nastier moments, suspected that the decision had been intended as much to get rid of Eridan for a few years as for his own benefit.

Such uncharitable thoughts never lasted long, though. After all, they’d been brought up side by side, like siblings. More importantly, they both despised their actual siblings, and instead had clung to each other all their lives. University was one more thing they would face together. _Maybe the last thing_ , said a small voice in the back of Feferi’s head, but she refused to listen. After all, they would probably be working together after they graduated. And how could anything they would face here tear them apart after they’d been through so much?

Aware that her current line of thought was akin to Hamlet saying “say, I do hope I don’t run into any _ghosts_ tonight”, Feferi shook her head and concentrated on the room in which they had just dumped their bags. Eridan had argued passionately for the two of them renting a house just off-campus (their families could easily afford it), but Feferi had insisted that they “stick with everyone else”, and Eridan had reluctantly acquiesced. He might complain (endlessly), but he always deferred to Feferi when she put her foot down. It was a useful power.

Besides, staying in dorms more or less protected them from running into any of Eridan’s fellow old boys; or, at least, allowed them to keep from seeing Rocco or J-Man or whatever their stupid names were at any time of day. Such encounters invariably ended with bizarre drinking games, frighteningly ritualised chants and oddly euphemistic reminiscences about changing room escapades. And all of that besides the sheer _whiff_ of aristocratic privilege that hung over them. It was like a meeting of Bertie Wooster impersonators.

“I don’t like it,” Eridan huffed. This seemed to be his considered opinion of the room, delivered apropos of absolutely nothing and after several minutes inside it.

“Well of _course_ you don’t like it,” Feferi said, deliberately emphasising certain words beyond reason in that way that Eridan despised. “It’s nothing _like_ anywhere you’ve known before. That’s what’s _good_ about it!”

“Well maybe _you_ wanna live with common people-“ Eridan began, then realised his mistake. Feferi leapt straight onto the bait.

“SHE CAME FROM GREECE, SHE HAD A THIRST FOR KNOWLEDGE! SHE STUDIED SCULPTURE AT ST MARTIN’S COLLEGE, THAT’S WHERE I! DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOODOO DOO DOO! CAUGHT HER EYE! DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOODOO DOO DOO!”

Several minutes later, when Feferi had finished singing ‘[Common People](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuTMWgOduFM)’ in its entirety, Eridan continued.

“But I’m accustomed to a certain standarda livin’.”

While she was impressed by his ability to resume a sentence as if she hadn’t interrupted it to belt out a mid-90s classic at the top of her lungs for five minutes, Feferi knew she couldn’t let this kind of attitude fester.

“That’s _exactly_ why we need this time! We’ve spent our _lives_ going from huge houses to the _best_ schools! _That’s_ why I didn’t want you going to Oxbridge! We need to experience _another side_ of life for once!”

“Wait, I thought you said that Oxbridge had lowered their standards unforgivably?”

Feferi rolled her eyes. “That was a _lie_ , Eridan. Of _course_ they haven’t lowered their standards, they’re fucking _Oxbridge_.”

Eridan sighed. “So you’re tellin’ me I could’ve gone to onea the best fuckin’ universities in the world, and instead you dragged me to this shithole?”

Feferi considered for a moment, then nodded brightly. “Yep, that’s pretty much _exactly_ what I’m telling you!”

Eridan shook his head. “I would threaten to leave and find a decent fuckin’ uni, but I’m guessin’ you’d stay here, right?”

“Right!”

“So I’m trapped. Brilliant.”

“You know, _most_ people would take pride in that kind of loyalty.”

“It’s just a facta life. I’d have to be a real shit to leave you on your own, Fef. Besides, after yearsa bein’ apart for school, it might be nice to be together.”

Feferi hugged him tightly. “See? _That’s_ more like it!”

After letting him go, she smiled intensely at him for a few seconds. Despite himself, he felt his face beginning to crack into a corresponding smile.

“ _So…_ do you feel like meeting some of our new neighbours?”

The smile vanished immediately. “No.”

“Oh come _on_ , grumpy gills! You can’t sulk in this room all _year_!”

“Wanna bet?”

She sighed, grabbed his hand and dragged him to his feet.

“Eridan Ampora, I will _force_ you to make friends and have a good time here if it _kills me_. Now, _get out that door!_ ”

With that, she pushed him in the direction of the door. He looked over his shoulder pathetically; seeing no mercy in her eyes, he opened the door and slipped out. She grinned and followed suit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, friends, and thank you for joining me on this potentially quite lengthy adventure!
> 
> That said, later chapters are unlikely to run quite as long as this one. I wanted to get (almost) everyone introduced in the first chapter, so that we can (relatively) quickly move on to some actual plot. You may have to look carefully for it, but it'll be there.
> 
> I haven't tagged any relationships yet, but they're a-comin', don't worry. I intend to lay some false trails and red herrings first, though - possibly false trails consisting of red herrings, or false trails leading to red herrings? I don't know, I haven't quite sorted out my idioms yet.
> 
> Incidentally, I wrote Sollux's lisp out phonetically partly to give some idea of what he sounds like and partly, if I'm honest, because I was proud of the "I thought I thaw a-" joke. I've continued that in my current drafts of subsequent chapters, but I might change it. If anyone has any opinions, or more particularly any difficulty in understanding him, do let me know.


	2. Stranger than Kindness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a few days, everyone is beginning to settle into their new surroundings.

“Tho what’th it like?”

“What’s what like?”

“You know. Living with Professor X.”

Aradia sighed. It wasn’t as though she had expected sensitivity from Sollux. Hoped for, yes, but not expected. He generally assumed that just because he was fine with his own dyspraxia meant that everyone else with any kind of disability was automatically fine with it too.

“It’s good, actually. Less awkward than I expected at first.”

“Mutht be weird, though. Living with a dude, I mean.”

“You seem to manage all right.”

“You know what I mean. He hathn’t been ‘akthidentally’ opening the wrong underwear drawer every morning, hath he?”

Aradia glared.

“Leaving aside the fact that you would even acknowledge the existence of your sister’s underwear drawer, please don’t be vulgar. Otherwise I’ll have to direct the question back at you. Unless you and Karkat share underwear?”

The grin vanished from Sollux’s face, only to be replaced by an even wider one on Aradia’s.

“Trust me, you don’t want to get into this. We both know from past experience that you get embarrassed long before I do.”

“Fine. You win thith round.”

Aradia lay back on the bed. True, it had only been a few days, but living with Tavros was proving to be thoroughly pleasant. Admittedly, he had blushed furiously at the mere sight of her in pyjamas on the first night, but had seemed to relax when she told him to think of it as one of the sleepovers they used to have. In fact, she was not worried in the slightest that he might end up becoming attracted to her. Not when he had to see her wake up every morning with hair all over her face and the fires of hell in her eyes.

If anything, she was surprised at how little he had changed since they were younger, as evidenced by the fantasy novels piled up by his bed (he had actually _read The Silmarillion!_ More than once!), and the total of three handheld consoles with various generations of Pokémon inside which littered the desk. It was refreshing that the ravages of time, and what must have been a traumatic injury, had left such a sweet boy relatively unscathed. So far, at least.

“Truth ith, I envy you. It doethn’t thound like you’ve been tempted to take an akthe to _your_ roommate even onthe.”

Aradia nodded understandingly. “How is Sweetness and Light?”

“Thame ath ever. Thhoutth at me every morning for daring to set an alarm. Inthithtth that I leave “hith thide” of the dethk clear, even when he’th not uthing it.”

“Isn’t your laptop bigger than half of the desk?”

Sollux’s face darkened. “Yeth. Yeth it ith.”

“Just think! Only nine months or so left of spending _every single day_ in his company.”

“Don’t thuppothe you’d be up for a roommate ekthchange?”

“Now there’s a dilemma. Do I exchange my sweet-tempered roommate, who wouldn’t hurt a fly and is currently out birdwatching, for someone whom I have known several times to claim that a particular bee has a vendetta against him?”

“Pleathe?”

“Put it this way: for years now you’ve been the only person who would put up with him for any length of time. Do you _really_ want to cast him adrift into an unsuspecting world?”

“Maybe you’re right. KK ith my croth to bear.”

“Are you comparing yourself to Jesus?”

“Fuck no. Jethuth got off lightly compared to me.”

 

***

 

Nepeta sprinted across the quad. It was something Equius had already warned her against, since she had collided with some poor boy in a wheelchair the previous day, but Equius wasn’t around and the urge was just too great. Besides, she had News, and it couldn’t wait.

Entering the dorm, she dashed up the stairs, managing to take them two at a time despite her short legs by jumping slightly. Fortunately, she was fairly fit, and it was going rather well until, between the second and third floors, she rounded a corner and collided with a boy wearing a grey jumper, slamming straight into his chest and knocking him over.

“Oops! Sorry!”

“Fuck’s sake, watch where you’re going!”

“Are you OK?”

“Yeah, yeah, fine. I mean-“

Karkat looked up, but she was already gone. He shook his head in disbelief. They had to go and stick him in the weirdo dorm, didn’t they?

Nepeta felt bad about not actually helping the boy up, but she was in a hurry to get to the fourth floor. She’d apologise if she saw him again. Surely he’d understand. It was very important that she tell Terezi and Equius her news. And also, if she was honest, make sure they hadn’t injured each other.

She was sorry to admit it, but her oldest friend and her newest simply weren’t getting on as well as she’d have liked. Equius was simply too straightforward for Terezi; he didn’t like to indulge in “juvenile pastimes”, and he disapproved of her strange, capricious sense of humour and constant grin. Unfortunately, she took this as a cue to take the piss out of him at every opportunity, and pick him up on the tiniest things. They hadn’t actually gotten into any particular shouting matches, as opposed to grumpily sniping at each other, but it was probably just a matter of time.

She pushed open the door to room 4-13, and breathed a sigh of relief. They weren’t at each other’s throats. They weren’t speaking, either, but that might actually be a good thing. At least it meant they weren’t antagonising each other.

She attempted to speak, but Equius got there first.

“Nepeta, do we not knock any more?”

“Oh, sorry.” In her haste, she had entirely forgotten.

“Don’t be sorry!” Terezi spoke up, indignant. Oh no. “Why should she have to knock? She knew we were here, and that we were expecting her. We were hardly going to be making out passionately on the bed.”

She cackled, which Nepeta had noticed seemed to be like punctuation to her. Equius, who had blushed slightly, waited patiently for her to finish. He never liked to conduct a debate without allowing his opponent adequate time to reply, or to finish their point. His attempts to represent their old school at competitive debating had consequently brought the debate coach to tears.

“That is not the point. It is the principle of the thing. Manners are important to keeping civilisation together, after all. Without them, we’d be no better than the mere beasts in the field. Majestic though they undoubtedly are.”

Terezi clearly had a retort ready, but Nepeta cut across her before this could become a full-on debate about societal codes. “I have news!”

That caught their attention; it certainly seemed to stop them composing their arguments, as they had clearly been doing, which could only be a good thing. She took a deep breath (much needed after all the sprinting) and continued:

“There’s a big party on tomorrow night at the student centre! It’s fur freshers to meet up and have a good time!”

Terezi had noticeably perked up at the word “party”, and even Equius looked interested.

“It would certainly behoove us to get to know our compatriots,” he mused. “I am eager to meet some of my fellow Engineering students. It will be most beneficial.”

“Screw that, it’s a PARTY!” Terezi said. “It’s for fun. You know about fun, right? That thing other people talk about?”

“I am afraid this will not be my idea of fun,” said Equius stiffly. “I suspect for many it will simply be an excuse to be drunk and disorderly.”

Nepeta hugged him from behind. “Oh come oooooon, Equius! You’ll have fun! I’ll make sure of it!”

Equius huffed, but put a hand over hers anyway. “Of course I will go along with you, but I fear you will not be able to induce me to see the event as more than an opportunity for networking. Besides, the music will be terrible.”

Nepeta and Terezi both nodded. They couldn’t really dispute that.

 

***

 

It had been five full minutes since Eridan had first raised his eyebrows, and Feferi was beginning to lose all hope that he would ever lower them again.

“No,” he said for the thousandth time. “It’s not happenin’, Fef.”

“Oh, _come oooooooooon_!”

“No.” One thousand and one.

This had been the gist of their conversation since Feferi had first pointed out the poster for the next day’s party, causing Eridan’s eyebrows to do their Major Tom impression. Hmmm, he would appreciate that fairly lame reference; she should mention it to him. Once she’d persuaded him to attend the party, obviously.

“You know it’s for your own _good_. Besides, it’ll be _fun_.”

“It’ll be fun for _you_. That’s a very important distinction. Just like every time you’ve knocked on some poor fucker’s door and spent ten minutes talking about how ‘ _marvellous_ ’ it is to be here has been fun _for you_. Not for yours truly standin’ in the doorway and gettin’ all the death-glares they shoot when you’re not lookin’.”

“That’s all been for your own good _too_! You need to meet our neighbours!”

“I am. And I’m discoverin’ that they don’t wanna meet me. So we have exactly one thing in common.”

“ _Eridan_ ,” Feferi began. Her voice was beginning to get dangerous. Eridan knew he couldn’t push her much further.

“I know, I know. I have absolutely no way of gettin’ outta this.” He raised his hands in mock surrender. “I just wanna make sure you know that I’m not in favour.”

“Excellent! Your fruitless intransigence has been noted! Now, let’s get inside.”

She grabbed him by the arm and dragged him in the direction of the dorm doors.

“Don’t tell me we’re doin’ more fuckin’ doorsteppin’.”

“Of _course_ we are! We haven’t even finished our _floor_ yet!”

“I really thought you’d stop after you nearly gave that wheelchair guy in room 2 a heart attack.”

“Don’t call him ‘that wheelchair guy’, Eridan! He has a _name_!”

“I’m sure he does, but I’m fucked if I can remember it.”

As they approached the double doorway, Feferi turned back to glare at Eridan, which unfortunately meant that she missed the fact that she was on a collision course with a girl with dark red hair, who likewise had turned around to say something to her companion. Both of them turned around just in time to be wedged perfectly together in the doorframe.

“Hey! Why don’t you watch where you’re going!”

“I could say the same to _you_! That was _very_ inconsiderate! You ought to be more _respectful_ of others!”

They freed themselves, and each took a step or two back. The other girl’s nostrils were flared, and she looked ready for a showdown. Her companion rolled her eyes to heaven, as if this were a common sight.

“Oh, I see! So you’re Miss Law and Order, is that it? You get off telling everyone else what to do? Hey, Hipster Boy, what do you think? Does she flick herself off every night thinking about spoiling other people’s fun?”

“Vriska, really-“

Eridan stepped in front of Feferi protectively. He raised a finger to point at the other girl.

“Who the FUCK do you think you are? What kind of fuckin’ TRASH are you? You could just apologise to her, but instead you go flingin’ all sorts of vulgar shit at someone you just met? Do you even know who she is?”

The redhead, Vriska, looked interested. Whether she really wanted to know who Feferi was, or she was just mesmerised by the utter pomposity of Eridan’s assault was hard to say.

“Eridan, what are y-“

“She’s FEFERI PEIXES! Yeah! Does that mean anything to you, you scum? Wouldn’t be surprised if it didn’t; doesn’t look like you have a proper education at all. Her mother’s very important people. OBE two years ago. So you just watch your fuckin’ tone with her, yeah?”

Feferi exchanged a look with Vriska’s friend which spoke volumes. Mainly: “Why can’t we walk away from this?”

“Ooooooooh?” Vriska dragged the syllable out to a ludicrous degree. “Well then. I’m afraid I don’t know the etiquette. Should I be curtseying right now? Hey Maryam, you know weird shit like this. Should I kiss her ring? Beg for clemency?”

“You just watch it. That’s all I’m sayin’.”

“And what about you? Do you have a name?”

“I’m her cousin. Eridan Ampora.”

“OK. Peixes and Ampora. Lord and Lady of the castle. Don’t know which is which though. I’ll remember that.”

“Vriska, for God’s sake-“

“Keep your sensible granny pants on, Maryam, I’m coming. Catch you later, your majesties.”

With a mock-bow, Vriska swept away. Maryam lingered just long enough to give an apologetic shrug before hurrying after her. Eridan turned triumphantly to Feferi.

“Well. That sure showed her, eh?”

Feferi looked at him with a mixture of pity and rage.

“For fuck’s _sake_ … You get that she was taking the piss out of you, right?”

“Well obviously. I’m not a moron. But now she knows what she’s dealin’ with.”

“That’s just the _problem_ , Eridan! You _never_ give someone like her ammunition! Besides, I wanted us to stay incognito! Now it’ll be all over the fucking _campus_ who we are! Solid fucking work there, cuz!”

She stormed off in the direction of their room. Eridan simply stood there a moment, dumbfounded, before hurrying after her.

“Fef, wait!”

Though none of the participants in the encounter had noticed, five floors above Nepeta Leijon had been hanging out a window so as to hear every word they said. Now she was nodding approvingly and jotting down notes. She needed to do so quickly; if her new shipping wall was to be any good, she had to know the _exact_ level of venom that had passed between Vriska and Eridan. There was an important difference between simple dislike and the kind of hate that led to rough, panting sex up against walls; every shipper worth their salt knew that.

Nodding in approval, she began some initial sketches.


	3. Raw Power

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone attends a party, willingly or otherwise, and many meetings occur.

The next evening came quickly, and Nepeta and Equius collected Terezi from her room before making their way to the party together. Nepeta had chosen to wear a light green dress, dark green tights and, despite Equius’s protests, a hairband with cat ears. He, meanwhile, had likewise ignored her protests and opted for a pinstriped waistcoat, though he had foregone the bowler hat she had sarcastically offered. Terezi’s outfit was surprisingly well colour-coordinated, though it did feature an awful lot of red; Nepeta wondered if she had memorised which clothes went well together.

“So,” Terezi rubbed her hands together with glee, while still somehow managing to hold on to her cane. “On a scale of one to Shane MacGowan, how shitfaced are we going to get tonight?”

“What would a college purrty be without excessive drinking!” Nepeta piped up. She could actually sense Equius’s brow furrowing.

“No, Nepeta. I refuse to allow you to become intoxicated again. We will not have a repeat of The Incident.”

Nepeta groaned. “The Incident was a one-off, Equius! Didn’t we agree on that?”

“No.”

“Oh. Maybe that was just me, then. I wasn’t really thinking too clearly afterwards.”

Terezi’s interest was clearly piqued. “What was The Incident?”

“We do not speak of it,” Equius flatly replied.

“It was our graduation party,” Nepeta said, in blatant contradiction of her friend. “I… went a bit mental and ended up drinking a lot. I don’t remember much of it…”

“I, on the other hand, am free from such blissful ignorance,” Equius shuddered.

“Come on,” Terezi probed. “You’ve got to give me _something_.”

Nepeta blushed slightly. “Well, I do sort of remember…”

“Yes…?”

“There may have been some mild…”

“Yeeees…?”

“…Flashing.”

Nepeta went crimson and fell silent. Equius shuddered again involuntarily. Terezi lapsed into fantasy. Thus they passed the rest of the walk to the student centre in silence.

The sound of thumping basslines was already vibrating their internal organs as they flashed their IDs and handed their coats in. Terezi visibly winced.

“Jesus. The music’s even worse than I expected.”

They made their way into a large reception area, which was full of other students dancing. There was a bar in one corner, a few tables and chairs scattered about and a DJ had set up at one end of the room. The space in front of the DJ’s booth seemed to have been designated as the dancefloor; certainly, that was where the largest concentration of people busting their various moves seemed to be.

Suddenly the music changed to [something even louder](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOV66-W9QeM) with squealing guitars and a man half-shouting, half-growling. Terezi actually screamed.

“OH MY FUCKING GOD!”

She flung her cane away in a random direction and started dancing a terrifying dance of her own creation, which seemed to involve jerking all of her joints around in random directions like an excited baby with flagrant disregard for the safety of all others. Equius gaped at her.

“What… What do we do?”

“Just leave her to it!” Nepeta shouted over the music. “She’ll be fine.”

“But… her cane… and shouldn’t we be looking after her?”

“Does she look like she needs looking after?”

“Well, yes, actually.”

“OK, Equius. You stay and look after her. I’ll just go over to the bar.”

“Very well. I shall- wait, NO!”

Nepeta giggled as she threaded through the crowd towards the bar, feeling the steady _thump_ of Equius’s signature footfall even through the proto-punk blast of the music. She finally reached the bar, slightly out of breath.

“Magners… please. Equius, what do you want?”

“Oh? Er…  cranberry juice, please.”

The bartender, and everyone within earshot, gave him a strange look, but the drink was poured (once it had been located) nonetheless.

“Now, look here, Nepeta. Stick to cider. NO SHOTS. If I find you slurring even slightly, or if you-“ he winced “-claim that your clothes are ‘uncomfurtable’ or ‘too tight’, we are heading straight back to the room, Terezi or no Terezi. Is that clear?”

Nepeta saluted by way of reply.

Equius turned to check on Terezi, and almost collided with a girl with bushy blonde hair who was carrying drinks. She stumbled slightly, but managed not to spill anything.

“Oh, fiddlesticks! I’m terribly sorry, this… happens quite a bit. Are you hurt?”

The girl smiled prettily, and he found himself blinking stupidly. “No harm done.”

Nepeta suddenly appeared at Equius’s elbow. “Equius! You’re talking to someone! Well done!”

“Erm, well, not exactly talking-“

“You don’t consider this to be talking?” the girl teased.

“Of course it is, but, erm… that is, I didn’t…”

Equius being extremely awkward was normally a cue for Nepeta to jump in, and now was no exception. “Hi! I’m Nepeta! The big lummox is Equius!”

The girl nodded, smiling. “Aradia. It’s a pleasure.”

Aradia? What a pretty name. Equius tried desperately to think of a conversation topic – aha! The perfect one!

“You’re not an Engineering student, by any chance?”

She looked rather baffled. “Er… no? Archaeology.”

Nepeta nodded in mock sorrow. “Ah, that’s a pity. Equius will only talk to fellow engineers.”

“What? I… I never said that.”

Aradia nodded too. “I see. Oh well. Nepeta, would you care to join us? We can talk to my friend and my brother while your friend seeks out his own kind.”

She put an arm around Nepeta’s shoulders and led her away. Equius was left stunned.

“But I never- I didn’t-“

After a moment, he came to his senses and hurried after them.

 

***

 

Twenty minutes of non-stop boogying had passed, and Terezi was finding her admiration for the DJ growing. They had segued seamlessly from the Stooges into the Dead Kennedys, through the Pixies and Nirvana into Smashing Pumpkins. It was as if her music collection had been arranged in chronological order. And now – oh, this was getting ridiculous. What kind of DJ played _My Bloody Valentine_ , for God’s sake?

That said, she felt she should probably stop before she collapsed. She could feel the sweat trickling down into her eyes – which, admittedly, wasn’t a huge problem, but was still probably a danger sign. Also, she was beginning to regret leaving the only people she knew there and throwing her cane away. Suddenly neither of those ideas seemed as brilliant as they had when Iggy had been calling.

She didn’t exactly want to grope around on the floor, but there didn’t seem to be much of an alternative. She sighed. Looked like she would have to ask someone and look pathetic and helpless-

“Excuse me.”

A measured voice was speaking from a couple of feet away and about 30 degrees to her right. She turned her head slightly.

“Yes?”

“I don’t mean to intrude, but I noticed this cane over there. I presume it’s yours?”

Terezi had never heard someone with such perfect diction outside of old BBC broadcasts. It seemed as though the owner of this voice was someone who took great care in what they were saying. She nodded and extended a hand, into which the cane was carefully placed.

“Thanks. I… mislaid it after I came in.”

“You’re quite welcome.”

Terezi sensed a slight hesitation, and dreaded the inevitable “do you want any help?” Before it came, though, an unlikely saviour arrived.

“There you are, Maryam, I’ve… shit. No way. No fucking way.”

There was something familiar about the voice, but… it couldn’t be. Her voice must have changed since childhood; there was no way it would be recognisable anymore. Terezi clung to that slim hope until it was immediately and unceremoniously shattered.

“Pyrope? Is that really you?”

“…Vriska?”

“Fucking hell, it _is_ you!”

Terezi suddenly found herself seized in a rough embrace. This was… odd. She had imagined running into Vriska Serket many times over the years. In her mind, it had never gone quite like this. Usually there was more stabbing.

“So how have you been? All these years, I mean.”

“Oh, you know. Blind.”

There was a tense silence for a moment, broken by Vriska laughing uproariously.

“Christ, I forgot how fucking _black_ your humour is. I love it! Oh, hey, Maryam, this is my old friend Terezi Pyrope. Pyrope, my slightly less old friend Kanaya Maryam.”

Terezi heard the measured voice again. “It is a pleasure to meet you.” She managed to make the formality sound remarkably genuine.

Terezi nodded in her direction. “Likewise.”

“Hey, Pyrope, come over here, we’ll grab a drink and catch up.”

“I think I shall leave you two alone for a while,” said Kanaya. “You clearly have some catching up to do, and I would feel remiss if I did not… mingle a little.”

She sounded as though the prospect of “mingling” was not one she relished, but there was no hint of displeasure in her voice otherwise. Terezi was impressed; not many people had that level of self-control. Vriska waved her off with a dismissive farewell, and Terezi nodded to her again. After Kanaya had presumably moved away, Vriska guided Terezi over to a table, and they sat down.

There were a thousand burning questions to ask someone you hadn’t seen in years, but one thing was to the forefront of Terezi’s mind.

“Who’s the DJ?”

“Oh, no idea,” said Vriska, sounding a little annoyed at the strange, out of the blue question. “I think I heard someone say he’s the president of the DJing Society.”

“There’s a DJing Society?”

“It’s uni; there’s a society for fucking everything. And probably one dedicated to _fucking_ everything. Or maybe that’s just student life in general.”

Terezi could hear that Vriska was grinning, and forced a wry smile onto her own lips. It felt strange to have to adopt her usual perpetual grin in this way. Vriska must have really been getting to her.

“So, hey! Tell me about your life, Pyrope! I mean, God, it’s been so many years!”

“Yeah. It has.” Terezi’s stomach churned, and she couldn’t keep her smile from vanishing. Obviously she would never have been able to avoid the subject of their shared past, but she had hoped it wouldn’t come up quite so soon.

Vriska noticed her reticence; she must have leaned across the table, since her voice was closer when next she spoke: “Look. Can we agree to leave the past… in the past? I mean, shit, some pretty terrible things happened, I’m not denying that. But the Scourge Sisters are back together! How can we ruin that by dragging up the past?”

Terezi inwardly groaned. Now this was vintage Vriska. Thoughtless and self-centred, but genuinely convinced she was in the right. Never mind all the emotional scarring, the years of not trusting anyone to get close, the physical scars from a hundred pretend fights which had ceased to be pretend. All of that could be wished away simply because it was inconvenient to her.

On the other hand… They had genuinely been friends, once. And Terezi had always had an inkling that she had really just been a cathartic target for all of Vriska’s frustration. Perhaps she was past that; she seemed to actually have at least one friend now, which was more or less unprecedented. Maybe there was a chance that they could recapture something. What that something might be remained to be seen, but it was worth investigating.

Terezi smiled. “OK. You’ve got a point. It’s the present only from here on.”

Vriska exclaimed in delight, and Terezi wondered if the other girl knew that she was lying, that she had absolutely no intention of being so foolish as to forget the past. It seemed very likely that she did.

 

***

 

“OK, we’ve been here long enough, Fef. Can we go now?”

“ _Eridan_! It’s barely been ten minutes! I haven’t even been _near_ the dancefloor!”

“Why would you bother? The music’s shit anyway.”

“Look, I know you think _all_ modern music is terrible-“

“Not all of it.”

“Really?”

“Bowie released an album last year.”

“Oh, of course _Lord David_ gets to be an exception…”

“What about you? Your taste is stuck in the past as much as mine.”

“Yes, but it’s not that I think all modern music is _terrible_. It’s just that the Beatles have already come and gone, and no-one’s topping _them_.”

Eridan rolled his eyes. He would egg her on, but that ran the risk of getting her started on one of her Beatles rants. The last thing he wanted was a repeat of her eighteenth birthday party, where she had attempted to get contact details for George Martin, ended up getting through to his office and spent half an hour tearfully describing what a “ _genius_ ” he was, how _Magical Mystery Tour_ was an “underrated _gem_ ” and how “ _incredibly_ thankful” she was for his body of work to an answering machine.

“Any sign of that Vriska girl?” Feferi suddenly sounded worried.

In fact, the first thing Eridan had done upon entering the room was to look for Vriska, and he had hardly taken his eyes off her since. “She’s sitting at a table, talking to the blind- to Pyrope.”

Feferi smiled. “See? You’re learning already.”

Eridan shrugged. “She seemed OK, even if she did grin way too much. I thought her name might be worth remembering.”

Feferi frowned slightly. She had always made a point of remembering _everyone_ ’s name, whereas Eridan only chose to remember someone’s name if they lived up to some sort of arbitrary test, to which even he didn’t seem to understand the rules. Even that was a relatively recent development. Still, it was progress, of a kind.

The song changed, and a [familiar intro](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpzggAVxLME) rang out, followed swiftly by John Lennon’s ravaged voice. Feferi looked as a shaft of light from heaven had descended upon her.

“Eridan, you get your arse on that dancefloor NOW!”

She skipped merrily onto the dancefloor, and began to shake it up, as per Lennon’s instructions. Eridan sulkily followed.

 

***

 

Thinking back, Sollux couldn’t quite remember how Aradia had persuaded him to join her at her table. In fact, he wasn’t entirely sure what he was doing at the party in the first place. He could only assume she had performed some sort of witchcraft, of which he had always suspected she was capable.

The conversation with her and Tavros had been tolerable for a while, but then she had returned from the bar with a short, excitable girl who was inexplicably wearing cat ears, and a big, well-built guy who kept gazing at her, then hastily looking away. Sollux was more amused at the latter than seething with fraternal protectiveness; after all, she could look after herself. Still, though, he felt the conversation had moved away from the point at which he could usefully contribute, and so he simply laid his elbow on the table, his head propped up on his wrist, and gazed around the room.

Karkat was probably around somewhere. He had vehemently denied that he had any intention of going, which of course meant that he had every intention of going. Karkat’s attitude to social gatherings was like Macbeth’s attitude to murder; he professed his reservations, but he just couldn’t keep away.

He didn’t seem to be at any of the tables, though. Perhaps he was simply wandering around, or perhaps – oh yes. PLEASE let him be on the dancefloor. Sollux readied his phone just in case. A video of Karkat dancing would make an excellent screensaver. On both their laptops.

He looked at the dancefloor and stopped dead. There was a girl up there with very dark skin and long, intricately braided hair. She seemed to be getting very into the Beatles; or perhaps that was just the contrast with her sullen companion, who had a stupid looking streak of purple in his similarly black hair. Sollux watched, mesmerised. She danced with wild abandon, losing herself entirely to the music and the sheer kinetic exhilaration, yet there was a remarkable grace to her; whether studied or inherent, Sollux had no idea. It didn’t particularly matter. Either way, she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

“Sollux?”

Aradia’s voice cut across his reverie. He blinked and looked about. Everyone was staring at him.

“Nepeta was asking you a question.”

“Hmmm? Oh… thorry.”

He glanced back at the girl on the dancefloor, before hastily returning his attention to his companions. No-one seemed to have noticed except the girl with the cat ears (Nepeta, apparently? He hadn’t really been listening when she was introduced), who followed his glance, looked back at him and smiled.

“No, it’s OK,” she said. She levelled her gaze at him a moment as if to say “you’ve been busted, son”. “I was just wondering what kind of music you liked?”

Sollux blinked. She had distracted him from the princess on the dancefloor for _that_? “Uh… I dunno. Thort of… ekthperimental thtuff. Thcott Walker, Velvet Underground, early Nick Cave.”

Nepeta nodded: “Like The Birthday Party?”

Sollux blinked again in surprise. He hadn’t expected her to know that name. “Yeah. And the firtht few Bad Theedth albumth.”

She smiled broadly. “That’s great! I love Nick Cave!”

Aradia exclaimed with delight, and the two got into a deep discussion about which were his best albums. Tavros clearly wasn’t following, but was listening politely, and the big guy wasn’t even doing that, but was gazing reverently on the passion which lit Aradia up. Sollux was about to laugh, then realised that he had just been doing precisely the same thing. He looked back at the dancefloor, but the song was over and the girl was gone. He couldn’t see her anywhere. Oh, but there was bloody Karkat, talking animatedly to a girl near the tables. Sollux sighed and laid his head on the table. Just his luck.

 

***

 

Karkat, for once in his fucking life, couldn’t believe his luck. After carefully waiting until some time after Sollux left, for fear of being caught, he had surreptitiously made his way down to the party, fully expecting to loathe both it and everyone there. He had hardly been there five minutes, though, before there was a tap on his shoulder and a voice he couldn’t place said:

“Karkat? Karkat Vantas?”

As if there were another Karkat in the entire UK. He turned around to see a vaguely familiar face. It took only a moment to connect the pieces:

“…Kanaya?”

She laughed with delight, and seized him in a tight embrace. Hugs were something of an alien concept to Karkat, mainly as a result of having Sollux for a best friend, but this one felt right. He returned it wholeheartedly, slightly stunned.

Kanaya and Karkat had been inseparable throughout primary school. They’d had sleepovers, gossiped about how much Karkat hated everyone in their class, even thought about getting each other’s names tattooed on their arms (until they’d finally worked up the nerve to ask Kanaya’s sister how to go about it, and she’d laughed for ten minutes straight). Then, despite their protests, they had been sent to different secondary schools. Their separation had been gradual; for a year or two, they’d kept in contact via the Internet and gone to the cinema every now and then, but gradually they had less and less in common. Karkat couldn’t even remember the last time they had spoken. And now, suddenly, here she was in his arms.

Back when she was eleven, she had been a pretty girl with hair down to her shoulders. Now she was a beautiful young woman with short hair which perfectly framed her face. And Karkat hadn’t even bothered to run a comb through his, not that it ever did much good. Typical.

They released each other, and he opened his mouth to speak, then shut it again. What did you say in this situation? The strength of his former feelings for her was matched only by the totality of her absence from his life in the last few years. She was looking embarrassed and he realised that exactly the same thing must be passing through her head. Bollocks. There must be something-

“So… what are you studying? I think that’s the tentpole question for this gathering.” Her crisp voice broke through his internal monologue.

“Oh. Er…” Jesus, what WAS he studying? He had genuinely forgotten somehow. “Oh! English Lit.”

She seemed amused by his delight at remembering what he would be devoting the next four years of his life to. “Ah. Very you.”

She wasn’t wrong. “What about you, then?”

“Fashion Design.” Ah, of course. She had always loved sewing. It was the one interest they didn’t share.

“Oh, so you’re in the new art building?”

“Yes, precisely. I’m afraid I don’t know anyone else there, though, so it’s a little daunting. In fact, as of this moment, I know exactly two people in this entire uni.”

“Who’s the other one?”

“My roommate.” Kanaya looked over at a girl with red hair who was talking excitedly to – oh. So that must be Sollux’s blind chick. Karkat glanced back at Kanaya, only to see her staring wistfully at the redhead. Wait, could that be…? Oh. So it was like that.

She turned back, and was slightly taken aback to see him looking at her. Did that mean…? Oh dear, she hadn’t meant to be quite so blatant. She had thought she was more in control than that. He said nothing, but nodded slightly. She smiled and nodded back. Of course. It was Karkat. She could trust him.

“Do you want to tell me about it?” he said softly.

She gazed at him levelly for a few seconds. “Yes. All right.”

 

***

 

Tavros was getting rather bored. It had now been several minutes since Nepeta had literally dragged both Aradia and Equius, with degrees of reluctance ranging from the professed (Aradia) to the genuinely horrified (Equius), onto the dancefloor, and they showed no signs of returning. He had tried to engage Sollux in conversation several times, but the latter seemed more interested in looking around for something.

He was trying not to blame them for leaving him alone, but it was difficult not to be at least a little frustrated. There was no way he was _ever_ going to go up and introduce himself to someone, as Aradia knew very well, and he could hardly follow them onto the dancefloor. Still, perhaps they were going to come back soon.

He took a look over at them. No, they seemed to be in full swing, so to speak. Nepeta was inexplicably up on Equius’s back, and Aradia was still attempting to dance in between fits of laughter. He smiled. It was good to see that they were happy, at least. That made things a little better. Well, it didn’t, but he could tell himself it did, and that was almost as good.

Something else near them drew his eye. There was a tall boy with some kind of white face paint and an absurdly large shock of jet-black hair breakdancing furiously, apparently by himself. Tavros leaned forward to get a better look. He didn’t remember seeing this fellow around before; surely he would have stuck in the memory? He looked fairly chubby, but somehow gaunt, or perhaps that was just the effect of the Baron Samedi-esque makeup. His dancing was chaotic, Dionysian, as if he was afraid to stop, or maybe afraid that he couldn’t stop.

Tavros shook his head, trying to dispel these strange thoughts. They weren’t much like him; these attempts at pop psychology were entirely alien to him. He had never been much good with humans generally; he specialised in animals, and they didn’t need to be psychoanalysed.

He was pleased to see the three dancers returning to the table. Aradia looked flushed, but pleased, while Equius was mopping his brow furiously with an actual handkerchief, the first Tavros had ever seen. Nepeta, meanwhile, seemed very pleased with herself for some reason.

The strange boy was still dancing in exactly the same manner, even though the song had changed. How odd. For an insane moment, Tavros considered going up and speaking to him, but he knew he couldn’t. Especially not with all these people around. Maybe another time, he told himself.

In truth, though, he doubted he’d ever see him again. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If by some chance you don't know who Shane MacGowan is, a quick search (even an image search) should shed some light on Terezi's evocation of him.
> 
> Everyone in this fic has pretty specific, though potentially wide-ranging, taste in music. We've already had a glimpse of Vriska's, and here we get to see a few more people's as well. Music is going to play some fairly significant roles as we move through the story.


	4. Take This Longing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> People deal with obsessions in their own ways.

Even though she had only been through a week’s worth of lectures, Kanaya was already certain that she was in the right place. Already she was beginning to see how a lifelong passion could potentially become the basis for the rest of her life, and it was making her happier than she could ever remember being. It was something which school, for all her diligence, had always failed to convey, yet here she felt instinctively at ease, as though this was where she should have been all along.

Now, on Friday, she was telling all of this to an eager audience of one in the art college’s café (of course it had a café; all of the art students would have rioted otherwise). She had been surprised on Monday to be accosted upon entering the building by the small girl with the omnipresent cat hat whom she remembered seeing around her dorm, but after only a few days she was already beginning to think of Nepeta as a friend. It wasn’t like her to warm to people so quickly, but she had found it impossible not to like someone so relentlessly eager to be her friend.

“I mean, this is going to sound like the most hideously overblown rhetoric, but… I feel as though I’ve found my place. My vocation, even. Do you know what I mean?”

Nepeta beamed and nodded vigorously.

“I’m the same! And I never even thought I’d end up here! I mean, I always loved drawing, but I never would have even considered doing it in college except that my art teacher said I should try, and Equius helped me put together a portfolio.”

Kanaya nodded. Equius, whom she had yet to meet, came up regularly in Nepeta’s conversation; it seemed you could hardly have one without the other. She was lucky to have such a genuine friend. Kanaya had avoided mentioning Vriska, but Nepeta knew her room number, and she had an inkling that behind those large eyes she knew more than she was letting on.

Kanaya’s phone vibrated, and she went to check it. She winced when she saw the message.

CG: HEY. WHERE DO YOU WANT TO MEET UP?

“Oh dear,” she said. “I’m terribly sorry about this. I forgot that I had arranged to meet my friend in…” - she checked the time on her phone - “…five minutes.” She didn’t really want to abandon either Nepeta or Karkat. Actually… Nepeta didn’t seem the type to object to new people. Could she…? “Do you mind if he joins us? I can go and meet him somewhere else if you do?”

“No, it’s fine!” Many people would have been a little put out, whether they showed it or not, but Nepeta smiled widely, seeming quite pleased at the prospect of meeting new people. It was rather odd, especially for someone who seemed rather shy when talking about herself; whenever Kanaya had asked about her, somehow the conversation had always ended up being about Equius instead.

Kanaya texted Karkat back, and she and Nepeta talked a little longer before he appeared. He appeared a little bedraggled and frustrated, but then again he always did. Kanaya waved to him, and moved a seat over to their table. He joined them after getting a latte for himself, and Kanaya made introductions. Nepeta beamed at him; he merely grunted at her. She didn’t seem particularly put out.

“So how have your lectures been?” Kanaya asked when they were settled.

Karkat shrugged. “All right. All introductory shit so far, so not much of what you might call actual content. Ask me again next week.”

“I’ll hold you to that.” Kanaya took a sip of her mocha. “Do you know anyone in your building?”

“There’s one guy I recognise, but I haven’t talked to him, and probably won’t. Hipster-looking fucker. Stupid purple stripe in his hair. Sulks in doorways while his friend assaults you with enthusiasm.”

A cloud passed over Kanaya’s face. “Ah. Yes. Eridan is his name, I believe.”

“You know him?”

“Not as such, but Vriska had an… encounter with him about a week ago. It stuck in my mind.”

Karkat nodded understandingly. So did Nepeta, which was odd. When she noticed Kanaya looking at her in surprise, she gave a mysterious little smile and sipped her tea.

Karkat began to talk about his incredibly insignificant squabbles with his roommate, and Kanaya noticed something interesting. Whereas she was simply nodding, and adding a “Really?” or a “Go on” every time he paused for breath (which was less often than seemed healthy), Nepeta seemed genuinely fascinated. She was on the other side of the table, so Kanaya couldn’t be sure, but she could swear she was surreptitiously taking notes in her lap. Karkat hadn’t noticed, but seemed gratified that his struggles were receiving such attention. He gradually built his way up from mild annoyance to full-on rant mode, at which point sentences went on for whole minutes of tortured metaphors, and the people at nearby tables began surreptitiously to move further away.

After a while, Kanaya checked the time, and was shocked to discover that Sollux-bashing had taken up almost two hours, something which seemed to horrify Nepeta. Apparently she really couldn’t separate herself from her best friend for long. It was both adorable and alarming in equal measure.

“I’d better get back to my room, but it was really nice to meet you, Karkat!”

“Likewise,” Karkat said quickly, and then half-winced, as if the admission that he had enjoyed the company of another human being was too much for him. Nepeta either didn’t notice or ignored it, and, after bidding farewell to Kanaya, was off at considerable speed.

“She seems OK,” Karkat admitted. “Good to see you making a friend already, anyway.”

“I had little choice in the matter. That said, I am glad to have met her. It’s… refreshing to have someone like her around.”

“Someone completely devoid of any kind of irony or self-awareness, you mean?”

Kanaya studied him for a moment. “Or too clever to show it.”

“Hmmm. Sure.” Karkat took a sip from his cup, only to make a face.

“You know you got that two hours ago.”

“Of course I fucking know that.”

“And yet you expected it to be palatable.”

“…Shut up.”

Kanaya smiled. Karkat had many wonderful qualities, not the least of which was how easy he was to playfully tease. She would say “too easy” if it weren’t so much fun.

 

***

 

For the fourth time in half an hour, Equius sighed, and shut the book he had been reading. This was intolerable. He simply couldn’t focus.

The whole week had been the same way. He had tried to pay attention in his classes, and he thought his notes were serviceable, but the fact remained that no matter how hard he tried to concentrate on anything, sooner or later Aradia’s face would flit its way to the forefront of his mind, and before he knew it ten minutes of him gazing into her imaginary eyes had passed.

It was ludicrous. He had met her a grand total of once. All right, so he had watched her from his window several times as she stood below talking to her surly brother or her roommate, but that didn’t really count. It wasn’t what he wanted. What he _wanted_ was for her to fix those intoxicating brown eyes on him, to reserve that wild grin for him as both subject and cause.

It was impossible, though. He couldn’t even bring himself to speak to her. Twice during the week he had attempted to knock on her door, but he could never bring himself to do it, and had simply stood in the corridor with his arm raised for several minutes, attracting many curious looks.

If only Nepeta were here. She could distract him, or at least he could talk to her about the whole ghastly situation. He could hash out his feelings, perhaps ask her advice, certainly ask her to stop drawing pictures of he and Aradia kissing and leaving them around the room.

He mopped his brow. Perhaps… it was Friday, after all. It wouldn’t seem at all strange if he caught up to her and casually asked if she were doing anything that weekend. If she was, perhaps she would invite him along. If she wasn’t… well, he would cross that bridge when he came to it. She was a gregarious young lady; it was very likely that she was indeed doing something.

He stood up abruptly. Yes! This time he would go through the entire knocking process to its logical conclusion of his fist percussively striking her door. He would be charming, friendly and hopefully not too sweaty. After a moment’s hesitation, he sprayed himself with one of the several antiperspirants on his bedside table. Best to be safe.

The trip down the stairs to the ground floor seemed to take an inordinately long time. He fancied that everyone who passed was giving him a strange look, as if mocking his romantic aspirations. Admittedly, that might have been because he was muttering to himself, but he was stressed. He was allowed to do that.

Finally, he reached it. Room 2. There it was. Right in front of him. This was it. Yes. Very good. All he had to do was raise his arm… yes, like so… good work, Zahhak. Now, make a fist… excellent! This was going very well. Now bring the fist forwards… no, forwards… see, what you’re doing is keeping it in place. That’s not right at all. Bring it in contact with the door. Come on… you can do it…

When the door opened, it would have been impossible to tell whether Equius or Tavros was more shocked.

“Erm. Hello there.”

“Hi. Were you, er… looking for Aradia? By any chance?”

“Well… I thought I’d… ask… yes. Yes I was.”

“Er… she’s not here.”

“Ah.”

“Yeah.”

At this point, Equius realised his fist was still raised, as if in salute. He lowered it as casually as he could.

“I see. Well then… how are you?”

“I’m OK.”

“Ah. Good.”

“Would you like to wait here for her?”

“Erm… no. I think I shall return to my room. Yes.”

“OK then. Bye.”

“…Goodbye.”

Equius watched Tavros roll away with a palpable sense of dejection. Then he went up to his room and didn’t come out again all weekend.

 

***

 

Feferi Peixes. Sollux ran it through his mouth several times, savouring the various syllables. A pity her surname had to have an X in it, but he could just try to avoid ever having to say it. He had always preferred people whose names didn’t include letters he couldn’t pronounce. It was one of the reasons for his ongoing war with himself.

Really, the university’s records were far too easy to hack into. He’d give IT some anonymous tips, if not for the fact that their incompetence had already proven useful and might do again. It had barely been the work of a few minutes to comb through the ID pictures of new admissions to the college and find the one that made his chest suddenly feel very tight.

It got better. Turned out she was in this very dorm, on the ground floor. A cursory bit of research had turned up the useful fact that her roommate was in fact her cousin, so no competition there (hopefully. On many levels). It was as though the universe was giving Sollux a high-five and a “go get her!”

Sollux stood up and stretched. Now all he needed was a cast-iron excuse to knock on the door of room 0-12. “Excuse me, is your computer all right?” “Yes, I think so?” “Oh, good, glad to hear it. Hey, I’m Sollux, by the way! Fancy a romantic candlelit dinner?” It was bulletproof.

He sauntered over to the window to make sure it was still light outside. It always paid to check after a good bit of time on the computer. His eye happened to wander down to ground level on the off chance that… holy shit, she _was_ there. This level of luck was getting quite worrying. He feared he might have to pay for it later on. She was animatedly talking to… fuck, was that Aradia? All right, it couldn’t be that easy. They were going to kiss any second now, weren’t they?

The door flew open and Karkat burst into the room. It didn’t seem that he had any particular urgency; that was just how Karkat entered rooms. Sollux turned from the window, but the deprecating greeting died on his lips as he remembered the open laptop. Shit! He couldn’t make a dive for it; Karkat would get there first, and that would draw attention to what was there. His best chance was to make an attempt at distracting-

“What the fuck is this?"

Oh. Right. Standing around coming up with a plan was rarely in itself the best course of action. Karkat was now staring open-mouthed at Feferi’s student profile.

“None of your fucking beethwakth ith what it ith.”

Sollux made to move towards the laptop, but Karkat, engrossed in the screen, placed a hand on his chest and held him out at arm’s length. He was able to do no more than graze the back of the screen ineffectually with his fingertips.

A sharklike grin spread across Karkat’s face. “Shit. You’re stalking the Peixes girl.” Sollux winced as he browsed between tabs. Her Facebook, her Twitter, various news articles that mentioned her in passing… fairly incriminating, all in all. Still, he was damned if he was going down without a fight.

“I’m interethted, that’th all. A thelebrity in our dormth? Come on, you mutht be curiouth about her too.”

“This isn’t ‘curious’. This is dancing around in your nutty room wearing her skin.”

Sollux sighed. “OK, tho I’m… interethted in her. Doeth that thound like any of your buthineth in any way whatthoever?”

A manic gleam appeared in Karkat’s eyes. “Are you shitting me? This is the greatest thing that’s ever happened to me! The king of all nerds is into the most eligible socialite in the fucking country! You can’t write this shit!”

“Thith ith not one of your fucking romcomth, KK! Thhe’th not gonna thee my inner beauty in the latht reel, and then we go off in a car that thtartth flying for no apparent reathon.”

Karkat nodded sagely. “We’ll see about that. A metaphorical uplifting musical number and/or flying car might be on the cards. This needs to be judged carefully.”

“Hold on, you’re going to _help_ me?”

“Did I not literally just say that this was the greatest thing that had ever happened to me? How the fuck am I supposed to stay away from that?”

“OK. Good. That might be utheful. Do you know anything about thith girl?”

Karkat stroked his chin. “I’m going to guess you know more than me right now, with your weird fucking archive of her online presence. I can’t say I really picked up much about her when she was here.”

Sollux didn’t react immediately. It was as though his brain’s processing power had been stretched to its limit and now everything he did was consequently very slow, as his eyes gradually widened behind his glasses and his mouth inched open.

“I’m thorry. Thhe wath _where_?”

“Oh. Right. Did I not mention that? She came by here a couple of days ago to shove her charisma in our faces. You were in a tutorial or some shit. I think she said she’d make sure to meet you some other time, come to think of it.”

The look on Sollux’s face was that of a man who has not only discovered the location of the Fountain of Youth, but also that a helpful team of engineers and plumbers are working around the clock to pipe it directly to his home. He strode purposefully towards the door, but before he could cover the three or four strides it would have taken him, Karkat was blocking his path.

“Wait, where are you going?”

“To introduthe mythelf. Obviouthly. Thhe’s jutht outthide the building with AA.”

“You can’t just stride up to her and say hello!”

“Why not? That theemth like the logical way to protheed.”

“Because… because it’s not romantic, that’s why not!”

“And creeping on her from a dithtanthe ith?”

“Ye- NO! Look, you just have to wait for the right time. Make the right first impression. You need to be the fascinating cool guy she just has to know more about, not the dribbling troglodyte who just saunters up to her and says ‘HELLO, I’M SOLLUX! WILL YOU HAVE ANGSTY, SELF-LOATHING SEX WITH ME?’”

Sollux glared at Karkat, using the excuse to study him. That glint in his eye wasn’t something Sollux had ever seen before, and it didn’t invite being trifled with. Besides, he was trying to help, in his own way. Granted, his way of helping would probably royally fuck things up, but at least then Sollux would have an excuse never to speak to him again.

“OK then. Fine. We play it your way. I mean, I’m eager to thee ekthactly what thenario ith a more perfect one in which to introduthe mythelf than her thaying thhe wantth to meet me and then thtanding around talking to my thithter.”

Karkat grinned. “You just let the master do his work.”


	5. Hang on to Yourself

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All kinds of plans are brewing.

Eridan made his way out of the library, a thick book on Hitler’s rise to power stowed under his arm. It was still only a few weeks into term, and he hadn’t been set any full essays yet, but he wanted to be prepared, and a little extra reading couldn’t hurt. Besides, it was fascinating stuff.

He ambled along the path that led to the dorms, daydreaming about absolute power and smiling to himself. He hadn’t seen Fef since that morning, and was looking forward to it. Her labs and tutorials took up a lot of her time and, being Fef, she devoted herself wholeheartedly to them.

As he passed the Computer Science building, he became aware that a skinny boy who was leaving the building was glowering at him. He repaid the glare with interest. What kind of moron dared to judge others while wearing glasses with inexplicably multicoloured lenses? He pushed his own elegant horn-rimmed glasses up his nose. Some people just had no sense of _style_.

He heard Fef before he saw her, outside the dorms, talking to people. He couldn’t distinguish any words, just a general air of overpowering enthusiasm. She had cornered a large guy in shades, who seemed to be sweating profusely. Eridan felt an unaccustomed rush of sympathy, and waved to distract Fef’s attention away from her intended victim. She waved back, inexplicably standing on tip-toes as though she were signalling to a distant ship, and the big’un took his cue to sidle away as swiftly and unobtrusively as possible.

“How’s the mission goin’?” he asked when he was close enough. “On first name terms with every fucker in the dorms yet?”

Fef rolled her eyes. “Like I was ever on anything else? Come _on_ , Eridan, this isn’t public school, you don’t have to refer to everyone by their _surnames_!”

“I’m not gonna stop. It preserves a distance between them and me.”

“Well, you’ve got a comrade there.” She jerked her thumb over her shoulder to indicate the recently fled giant. “Equius _insisted_ on calling me ‘Miss Peixes’ the whole time we were talking. You two should form some sort of antiquarian club together.”

Eridan scowled at the mere mention of a club. He had studiously avoided the clubs and societies, not feeling any particular need to get to know anyone. Fef, naturally, had signed up for _everything_ , and seemed to be forever dragging him to film screenings, guest lectures and excruciating “meetings” which seemed to be 50% pointless masturbatory voting and 50% awkward small talk with people who were clearly only attending on the promise of the ultimate student prize: free booze.

Still, at least they were spending time together. Seeing her every day still felt like a pleasant novelty. And he knew that she felt the same way about him. She might make friends with everyone else in the world, but that was just her way. After all, at the end of every day, she’d be back in their room sleeping with him. Wait, what?

He shook his head vigorously to distract from all implications of incest. Fortunately, she didn’t seem to notice, or perhaps she had just gotten used to Eridan’s occasional need to dispel disturbing thoughts.

“So how was your day? Actually, how was your _week_?”

Despite himself, Eridan smiled slightly. “Not too bad. Y’know, it’s a good course. Interestin’ stuff.”

“Have you talked to anyone yet?”

“No.”

“Do you intend to?”

“No.”

Feferi rolled her eyes in heavily dramatised exasperation. “I swear, if I leave you to your own devices you’ll get through your _entire degree_ without speaking to a single soul besides me. It’s time for drastic action!”

Eridan’s blood froze in his veins. “How drastic are we talkin’?”

“Ah! The first rule of Operation Get Eridan Some Friends is that you can’t know what the operation consists of!”

“But I’m allowed to know that it exists?”

“Of _course_! You need to be nervous! You’ve been given _plenty_ of time to make friends in a way that’s comfortable to you, _ergo_ making friends in itself must be an uncomfortable experience for you! So the more uncomfortable I can make it, the better you’ll do!”

She delivered this twisted logic like the grand unveiling of a wondrous new invention, punctuating both syllables of the word “ergo” by stabbing him in the chest with her finger. Eridan’s mouth fell open. He had never been able to get around Feferi once she had a plan, but this reached new heights of distress. Perhaps he could fake an illness. Or, better yet, actually fall ill. A terrible injury could work too. He quickly tried to figure out to which limb he was least attached. So to speak.

Feferi was watching him closely, a steely look in her eye. “You’re not getting out of this one, Eridan. Self-mutilation will not excuse you from the _many_ social engagements I have planned for you, my beautiful debutante. Now, come with me. It’s time we _finally_ set up a Facebook page for you.”

She slung an arm around his shoulders by standing on tip-toe, and led him like a domesticated animal into the dorms.

 

***

 

Karkat watched from a distance as the Peixes girl dragged her obnoxious cousin into the dorms. Well, admittedly, Karkat had never spoken to the guy, but his obnoxiousness seemed apparent even from a clinical distance. There was a whole section of his notes dedicated to dealing with him as a potential obstacle.

Speaking of which… He picked up his notebook, flipped to the next empty section under the “Movements” heading and wrote the date, the ninth of October. Let’s see now; first she had come out of the dorms chatting to Aradia (who still needed to be recruited as an ally, actually; better make a note of that), then that big guy, Equius, had come over to talk to Aradia and been waylaid by Peixes. Aradia’s roommate (Davros? No, but it was something Daleky like that) had come out of the dorms and Aradia had gone off with him, the two of them seemingly scanning around carefully for something. Then Peixes had continued talking to Equius for a good thirty minutes until Ampora had come along.

Karkat smiled to himself as he wrote all of this down. He was proving to be quite good at this espionage shit. It was simple; find a bench far enough away to be inconspicuous, pretend to be reading a newspaper, make sure your binoculars are well-hidden when you’re not using them. Admittedly, the trenchcoat may have been an over-zealous touch, but if you were going to do something, it might as well be done right.

All of this hard work… Sollux would be sure to thank him profusely. Well, technically he would sneer, but it was essentially the same thing. Not that it really mattered. Sollux was actually irrelevant to the matter. Karkat was serving the spirit of romance, striking a blow to make real life just a little more like a rom-com. If that entailed being completely ridiculous, so be it. In fact, that probably helped matters along.

He looked around. No sign of Peixes; he’d better wait around to see if she came out again any time soon. He was still trying to work on a way of monitoring her when she was inside, preferably in the least pervy way possible. That was probably taking things a little too far, though. Unless she was meeting with some secret lover who never emerged into daylight, it probably wasn’t entirely necessary.

Oh, there was Nepeta, looking excited about something, which seemed to be her default state of being. He considered waving to her, but decided she might blow his cover. He didn’t know her well enough yet to know if she could be trusted in a delicate matter like this; she would need to be carefully vetted. Even Kanaya didn’t know what he was up to, though admittedly that was mostly because he knew she would probably just roll her eyes and attempt to make him do something that she thought more constructive.

Speaking of Kanaya, he’d noticed her roommate pass through just after Feferi had gone inside. Vriska, or “megabitch”, as Karkat had nicknamed her in the privacy of his own head. Kanaya deserved so much better than someone like that; perhaps he’d try to help her out on that front once Sollux and Feferi were ensconced in romantic bliss. It seemed a noble calling.

He stretched out and settled himself in for a wait. Playing a cross between Cupid and Philip Marlowe was difficult work, but rewarding. Probably.

 

***

 

As Terezi entered the library, Vriska waved goodbye to her cheerily, before realising the fruitlessness of the gesture. She winced at her idiocy. But hey, she was being _nice_ and _thoughtful_ like Maryam always said, and wasn’t that what mattered? Apparently?

It wasn’t so much that she had scorned the idea of friendship. She wasn’t some Saturday morning cartoon villain, bent on destroying love or some shit. Friendship was just generally something that happened to other people, and they were welcome to it. It was for people who weren’t capable of self-reliance. Vriska had learned at an early age that the only one she could really count on was herself, and she was thankful for the lesson.

Sure, there was Maryam, but she was fundamentally different to other people. She had always imposed her help and companionship on Vriska, and it got annoying quite a lot of the time, but somehow it was never as bad as when other people tried it. Vriska had often wondered if it was because she recognised something in Maryam that she herself mightn’t know about; a hard, steely edge, someone who took no shit from anyone. After all, she clearly took herself as a maternal figure, and mothers, as Vriska knew well, were not people to be trifled with.

Now there was Terezi too. Her first friend and her latest. In her most honest moments, Vriska could admit to herself that she had always been a little jealous of Terezi. To be _that_ smart and tough, _and_ have a loving family to boot? How could anyone have that kind of luck? Now, though, the playing field was level. Vriska had vaguely heard that Terezi had gone blind a few years ago, but that was some time after they’d stopped speaking, and the news had hardly even registered with her. She’d always had an inkling that someone like Terezi wouldn’t let blindness get in her way, and she was overjoyed to see how right she’d been. It made her proud.

She did feel a little bad for the ways things had ended between them. It was Terezi’s fault too, of course; she’d become hostile and suspicious, and friendly insults had turned into angry, biting ones. Perhaps they’d both been a little shortsighted, which was probably unfortunate phrasing. Vriska felt she could have done with a friend like Terezi throughout her teenage years; a real comrade. Maybe now some bridges could be mended.

She realised with a jolt that she was in front of the dorms. She must have walked here while musing about Terezi. How odd. She wasn’t given to that depth of introspection. Something had been sparked in her, apparently.

She checked her watch. Bloody hell, it was half 5. She should probably get down to some work. Maybe Maryam would be in there. They hadn’t seen much of each other in a little while, since they’d both been with other friends (though admittedly the plural didn't really apply in Vriska's case). This might be a good opportunity to catch up.

She walked in and pushed open the door to their room. Maryam was indeed in there, sitting on her bed reading a novel with some of her [weird music](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvZK8Wl7RQ8) on the stereo. Vriska sighed and plonked herself down on her own bed.

“Why the fuck are you listening to some sort of chain-smoking bear?” she said by way of greeting.

Kanaya didn’t look up from her book. “It’s Tom Waits. He might appeal to you, actually. He writes a lot about shady characters, late-night bars, that kind of thing.”

Vriska winced. “No thanks. I like my music to sound like it’s made by humans.”

“If you say so. I didn’t think most humans could scream like that, but there you go.”

Vriska was about to launch into full-on snark mode when a knock came on the door. Vriska, knowing the current whereabouts of her only two friends, was confused, but Kanaya shouted “come in”, and a short girl in a ridiculous hat with cat ears entered.

“Oh!” she said. Her voice was incredibly high-pitched, and Vriska took an instant dislike to it. “You must be Vriska!”

“Maryam, why does a character from some kind of fucked-up bestiality anime know my name?”

Kanaya sighed. She was a champion sigher, able to express just about any emotion through exhaling loudly. “Vriska, this is my _friend_ Nepeta. Nepeta, you can probably safely ignore everything she says.”

“It’s OK!” said Nepeta brightly. “She’s just expressing herself. That’s good!”

Vriska goggled at her. No way. Nobody could possibly get through at least eighteen years of life and still be that naïve. It _must_ be an act.

“Would you like to take a seat?” Kanaya asked, taking full advantage of Vriska’s unexpected silence.

“Oh, no, it’s fine! I just came to tell you about the party!”

Kanaya sighed again, this time in exasperated amusement, a favourite of hers. “Not another party? Why must uni be so determined to live up to its reputation?”

“This isn’t a Students’ Union party! This is a _real_ one, a house party! Some guy who lives just off campus is opening his doors to everyone!”

“What a complete tool,” commented Vriska.

“We are in agreement there,” said Kanaya. “I can think of absolutely no way that this can go well for that poor man attempting to provide a service.”

“But you’re still coming, right?” said Nepeta, in a voice Vriska normally associated with small children begging their parents for more sweets.

Kanaya looked at Vriska, who shrugged. “Why not? Could be a laugh.”

Nepeta jumped with glee. “Great! You’ll get to meet Equius!”

With that, she ran off, not bothering to close the door behind her. Kanaya strode over to close it for her with the wearily patient sigh she reserved for children as Vriska frowned.

“Equius? Not Equius Zahhak?"

“I can’t imagine there are very many Equiuses around. Or should that be Equii? But yes, I believe Mr. Zahhak is her roommate and best friend.”

Vriska laughed aloud. Her big, stoic lummox of a neighbour was best friends with a short girl in some kind of state of arrested development? You couldn’t make this shit up. She filed the information away for future use.


	6. Come Together

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yes we're going to a party, party.

“This is the place!”  

The satisfaction in Feferi’s voice was evident. And why not, after fifteen minutes of wandering around a labyrinthine housing estate in the dark? She had never been to such an exotic place before; semi-detached houses were a new and strange concept to her (surely you could _hear_ the neighbours through the wall?). It was all very exciting.

Halfway up the path to the front door, she looked over her shoulder to make sure Eridan was still with her. It always paid to check. Yes, there he was, trudging ten paces behind her, true, but plodding relentlessly onwards still, as if a prison guard with a pike were prodding his backside every few steps. His loyalty was often endearing, as well as being very useful.

As she reached the front door, she frowned. She didn’t really have much experience in the realm of suburban house parties, and Eridan most certainly didn’t have any, so it was useless asking his advice. Should she ring the doorbell, or -? Maybe try the door first. After all, the music was clearly audible even out here. It was inconceivable that anyone would hear the doorbell.

She gingerly tried the handle of the front door, and it opened immediately. Eridan’s eyes opened wide with incredulity.

“Really? Oh, that is just askin’ to be robbed. Or gatecrashed. Or probably both.”

She ignored his cynicism (though she had to admit he had a point) and pushed the door wide. Nobody seemed to be in the hall; then again, why would they? It would hardly the centre of the action. She stepped through the door and beckoned to Eridan, who hesitated a moment on the threshold before closing his eyes and stepping valiantly over his own personal Rubicon.

The coat rack looked to be in danger of coming off the wall with the weight of coats that had been placed on it, so Feferi simply threw hers over the banisters, following the lead of several other people. Eridan defiantly hugged his own jacket closer to him, as though daring some unknown covetous party to snatch it from his shoulders. Feferi rolled her eyes and opened the door to the room from which the music seemed to be coming.

It was like walking directly into a wall. The air was driven from her lungs by the sheer sonic assault, and she blinked rapidly in surprise. Quite a large portion of the room was taken up with two massive speakers, which were incongruously connected to a small laptop. Loud dance music was playing, and much of the floorspace was taken up with heaving bodies. These included Nepeta, who waved cheerfully to Feferi; Equius, who looked as though projectile vomiting was in his near future; and Aradia, who seemed to have lost herself entirely to the music and was jumping and swaying alternately with her eyes closed.

Quite a few people seemed to be around the edges of the room, avoiding the Dionysian mass at its centre. Feferi saw someone she vaguely recognised as Aradia’s brother, who caught her eye and quickly looked away. Strange. She must make time to talk to him later; she wasn’t even certain they had been properly introduced yet. Through the glass door that led to the garden she could see- Aha! Her target! She grabbed Eridan, who for once didn’t even bother to offer token resistance, and dragged him over to-

“ _Kar_ kat!”

Karkat was in conversation with someone, but she saw him both freeze and wince, a complex gesture, at the sound of her shouting over the music, which blared through the open door. He slowly turned around as Eridan closed the door.

“Er, hi… Feferi, right?”

“Oh, now, you know that! So tell me: _why_ have you been spying on me?”

For a moment the world stopped, and she was hyper-aware of everyone’s reactions. Behind her, Eridan tensed up, in indignation or perhaps horror. The girl to whom Karkat had been talking (Maryam, was it? Feferi hadn’t spoken to her since that unpleasantness in the first week) raised her eyebrows, looking more amused and curious than appalled. Karkat himself took on the look of a man furiously praying for spontaneous combustion.

“Er… well… see… it wasn’t what you think.”

Well, at least he wasn’t trying to deny it. Points for honesty. Might as well indulge him.

“So what _was_ it then?”

“I wasn’t… like, it wasn’t in a pervy way. I was just trying... to find shit out. About you.”

She nodded sagely. “So it was _actual_ spying, rather than voyeurism? Is that better?”

“It wasn’t like stalking. Well, it was a bit, but it wasn’t like that. It was for…”

He trailed off, as if he couldn’t bring himself to finish the sentence. Feferi leaned forward in expectation as his companion nodded in understanding.

“I believe what Karkat is chivalrously _not_ saying is that he was acting on behalf of a friend. At least, that is what I infer from my experience of interpreting his sullen silences.”

Feferi turned her curious searchlight gaze onto Karkat, who finally nodded in mute confirmation, looking as though it caused him physical pain. She grinned like a particularly humourless shark, intoning two words like the passing of a dreadful sentence:

“Do tell.”

 

* * *

 

It had taken Sollux the best part of an hour to determine the optimal place for him to withstand the party, and he was determined not to move from it for as long as possible, preferably the whole night. It was perfect; as far as he could possibly get from the dreadful music and irritating people while still being able to claim that he was, in fact, attending the party, as opposed to surreptitiously burgling the house. True, his carefully-chosen spot was in fact a dark corner, but that only added to its charm. 

He checked his watch for the tenth time in twenty minutes. Bollocks. Only half nine. If he tried to leave now, he’d be assaulted on his way out the door, and probably manhandled all the way to the dancefloor. Better to wait until the more eager partygoers were too inebriated to notice anyone trying to slip away from their sweaty, thumping utopia.

It needn’t have been _so_ bad, but unfortunately the only two people here he could stand apparently had business elsewhere. Mere moments after they entered, Aradia had been quite literally dragged away by the small girl wearing a cat-eared hairband whom Sollux vaguely remembered from the freshers’ party. Karkat had stayed with him long enough for them to pass judgement on several other partygoers, but several minutes ago he had gone off to look for the bathroom and hadn’t returned. What was more, only moments after he had left Sollux had distinctly seen him sprinting towards the back garden as though some kind of dystopian secret police were kicking in the door.

Even as he puzzled over this odd behaviour now, a chance glance in the direction of the back door was rewarded by the sight of a terrified-looking Karkat, accompanied by… no. It couldn’t be. How the everfucking love had scrawny, petulant Karkat managed to get the attention of that extraordinary specimen? And why were they coming this wa- Oh no. No. It couldn’t be. He had warned Karkat off this interfering business a thousand times, and yet he _always_ -

Sollux looked around for an exit. Unfortunately, they were in short supply in his present position. Cursing his tendency to back himself into literal corners, he swallowed the lump in his throat and waited for them to reach him. Perhaps it would be all right. Perhaps he would suffer cardiac arrest before they got to him. Or thermonuclear war might break out and they would all be immolated instantaneously. Or CERN might finally do what underinformed imbeciles kept insisting they would, and create a black hole. Really, the possibilities were limitless.

Unfortunately, the laws of probability were not on his side, and Feferi reached him without apocalyptic incident. Karkat hung back, staring determinedly at the floor as Feferi stood eyeing Sollux, a strange smile slinking its way across her face.

“So _you’re_ Sollux?” she said finally. “ _The_ Sollux?”

From anyone else, that would have earned a snarky response, but Sollux found himself mesmerised. He simply nodded.

“Your friend tells me that you’re, well, _interested_. Is that true?”

He froze, frantically searching through his memory banks. How did people normally react to this? Had this ever happened to anyone in history? What about films? Bloody hell, Karkat would probably be able to cite twenty examples off the top of his head, but Sollux… He was drawing a complete blank. And seconds were ticking by. And she was still staring at him, her grin never wavering. All right… time to improvise…

“Er… yeth. Yeth. That’th true.”

Brilliant. Dazzling. What girl could fail to be floored by such a romantic gesture?

Her expression still hadn’t changed. “ _Well_ ,” she said, drawing the single syllable out to breaking point. “In that case, I feel like we should get to know each other. Just a little. Don’t you agree?”

Wait. WHAT? Was she- Did she actually still want to talk to him? This was unprecedented. He looked over at Karkat, who shrugged. Was this… his chance? Or some cruel prank? After all, that grin… but now that he looked at it closely, there was no malice in it. She wasn’t laughing at him. She wanted to include him in her laughter. Suddenly, an unaccustomed rush of hope gripped him, and he broke into a tentative smile.

“Thure. Why don’t you… tell me about yourthelf?”

 

* * *

  

As his [favourite song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yX6FsTIq6ls) faded into something else, Gamzee Makara began for the first time in several hours to contemplate leaving the dancefloor. He felt he had some more dancing left in him, but then again his feet, joints, head… actually, pretty much everything was beginning to hurt. His head pounded pretty much most of the time, so that was fine, but the others usually meant a collapse was in his near future, and he was anxious to avoid another of those.

He wandered to the side of the room, blinking in confusion as the fog that swathed his mind when not dancing returned. As he leaned on a wall for balance, his eyes swept the room, and he began to realise that he didn’t know anyone here. Not a soul. Usually there was at least _one_ person who looked vaguely familiar, but nope.

He considered going to talk to someone. But who? The big dude in the shades with the distinctly uncomfortable expression? Nah, there was a buzz-killer if ever Gamzee saw one. The gothy chick? She could be cool, but then again she could say something morbid that might freak him out, and it always took him hours to cool down from a proper freak-out.

His eyes settled on a scowly-looking dude in a grey pullover who looked like he was trying to melt himself into a corner. The bloke looked as though he wasn’t having _any_ fun. That wasn’t cool. Gamzee decided to go over and try to help him out. Maybe they could spark up a fattie outside, if the guy was cool with it.

He crossed the room bit by bit, pausing every few steps to ensure that he was both correctly balanced and proceeding in the right direction. It took him the best part of five minutes to do so (or so he thought; his sense of time was usually a bit skewed), and yet Scowly remained firmly in place. This was good. Gamzee had half-feared that he would look away, and when he looked back the dude would be gone. He wasn’t at all sure he could deal with that kind of reality-fuckery just now.

He opened his mouth to speak when he was within range, which in this kind of environment was approximately six inches from the listener’s ear.

“Hey, man. Wassup?”

Scowly turned his head slowly, an expression of utmost irritation filling his features, replacing the previous expression of bored frustration: “Can I help you?”

Gamzee grinned. “That’s not it, man. I think the thing is more like, can _I_ help _you_ , y’know?” He nodded slowly, as though he had just made a particularly sagacious observation.

The other guy sighed. “Ah. Right. Let me guess: you saw me from way over there, and thought, hey, this guy doesn’t look like he’s being dragged kicking and screaming into the sweaty, uncomfortable prison that we refer to as ‘fun’, so why don’t I fucking stumble my idiotic way over there and try to let a little ray of sunshine into his grey, perpetual misery?”

Gamzee took several seconds to digest the sentence, and saw no problems with it. “Yep. Pretty much.”

“Right. Well, look, I’m feeling especially reasonable just now, so I’ll lay it out for you. I have no intention whatso-fucking-ever of having ‘fun’. In the extremely fucking unlikely event that I spontaneously develop such a desire, and we’re talking meteor-annihilating-the-fucking-house unlikely here, the last way I will go about it will be by the recommendation of some drugged-up knuckle-dragger who’s somehow battered into his thick fucking skull the idea that the best way to be a saint is to shove his way into other people’s personal space and shout in their fucking ears. Clear enough for you?”

Gamzee considered for a moment. He hadn’t expected any such resistance. Still, there was one surefire way he knew of to break down any barriers.

“OK, man, I get you. Say, how about a spliff?”

The crabby dude stared at him levelly for what must have been a full minute.

“…All right then.”

 

* * *

 

Nepeta looked on as the socialite and the hacker slipped into the back garden together, and nodded in satisfaction. There was a lot of material for her secret notebook here. She might even end up putting a tick next to the drawing of them with the red line between them that was on the inside back cover, just under the one of Equius and Aradia doing what the caption referred to as “lovey smooching”. 

She couldn’t allow herself to dwell on it, though. After all, the party was already beginning to wind down, and there were so many others who still hadn’t been properly engineered into their correct state of romantic bliss.

Actually, there was a point: where was Eridan? His sole friend seemed to have forgotten about him, which left him perfectly placed for an encounter with his archrival, who was skulking about somewhere. And if enough sparks could be made to fly…

Nepeta glanced about to find him, and immediately regretted it when she did. Oh God no. Where the hell had he gotten a guitar from? Who in their right mind would allow Eridan Ampora to hold a guitar at a party? Surely any sane person would wrestle it from his grasp and smash it to bits rather than run the risk that he might actually attempt to play something?

No, no. That was unfair. After all, even Eridan had to have a party mode. And singalongs could be good fun! Maybe he was going to play something nice and upbeat.

He started playing the opening notes of the song, and she screamed internally. Oh no. Not [this song](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qg_TRaiWj4o). This song was the death knell for any chance of romance at this party, for him at least. _Nobody_ could find any other human being attractive after hearing them play this song. Especially if they sang it like they meant it.

She cast frantically about for options. She couldn’t very well tackle him to the ground, much as she wanted to. He didn’t even have the good grace to actually be _bad_ ; his voice was reedy but he was on-key, more or less, and his fingerpicking was actually pretty decent. Maybe he could get through this relatively unscathed. Just as long as he wasn’t heard by-

“Hey cat girl!” Nepeta’s worst fear was realised as Vriska’s harsh alto voice rang out from the direction of the kitchen. “I need to talk to y-“

She didn’t even manage to get all the way through the door before Nepeta pushed her bodily her into the kitchen and quickly shut the door. Good. Eridan’s heartfelt yearning was more or less inaudible here. She just had to keep it that way for about another two and a half minutes.

“What the hell?! What are you playing at?”

“Oh, s-sorry, Vwiskers. I just thought in here would be a better place if you wanted to talk. You know, less noisy.”

To her immense relief, the lame excuse seemed to pass muster. Vriska’s face was screwed up in disgust, true, but it seemed to be more a reaction to the nickname than anything.

“Right. Yeah. Whatever.” She muttered something about “fucking weeaboo crazies”, but Nepeta was too awash in relief to care much. “Anyway, you seen Maryam around?”

“Erm… she was with Karkat earlier, but I haven’t seen her since.” Nepeta cursed herself. She’d been so intent on Feferi and Sollux that she had entirely failed to track anyone else’s movements. Who knew what kind of opportunities, or even actual romantic encounters she’d missed?

“Karkat? Oh, right, the shouty dude she was born holding hands with or some shit.” Vriska winced, as though she had seen something unpleasant. “Never mind, I’ll find her myself.”

Vriska strode off before she had even finished the sentence (in the opposite direction to Eridan’s minor key emoting, thankfully), as Nepeta’s thoughts whirled. She had long since decided that Vriska was unhealthy for Kanaya, but she had underestimated the former’s clinginess. How fascinating. If she could keep them separate, and find a way to redirect that energy in her desired direction… She felt like rubbing her hands together in glee. Everything was proceeding purrfectly according to plan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In my mind, Gamzee sounds like Danny the drug dealer from Withnail and I.


End file.
